Category: Worldwide

Because of the writer’s strike, we’re not getting nearly enough political satire via our normal sources, like the Daily Show, Saturday Night Live, etc. Normally, MyPillow czar Mike Lindell would fill that gap. His inane rants and live-streamed aneurysms aren’t comedy, per se, but we can usually find something to laugh at while waiting for his (fake?) mustache to fall off. But his latest tirade against Planned Parenthood is just the right amount of dumb and dangerous to be more concerning than comical.

At an event on Sunday, Lindell made the roundabout argument that abortion providers like Planned Parenthood aren’t just “killing” children — they’re killing parents as well. If the mental gymnastics of that theory has left you dizzy, we’ll try to explain.

After another panelist at the predominantly Christian event blamed abortion for not just “destroying a child” but “destroying God’s image,” Lindell interrupted with his own story about the time he led an anti-abortion demonstration on the steps of the Supreme Court. During that public protest, Lindell claimed he told the crowd of half a million supporters that Planned Parenthood was “killing parents.”

How? In the words of Aaron Burr, we’ll let him tell it.

“I go, hello, I said, remember that song, ‘Mama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys?’” he asked. “Planned Parenthood doesn’t let their babies grow up to be parents.”

Sure Grandpa, let’s get you to bed.

(Via RawStory)

Rappers’ fixation on quick album turnarounds continues with Rick Ross. First, Drake bragged that he didn’t need several years in between projects to return with another chart-topping hit. Now, Ross is following suit: During an interview with Amazon Music’s correspondent Rob Markman the “Diced Pineapples” rapper boasted that if it came down to it, he could bust out an album in just a couple days.

When asked about two of his fan-beloved projects, Rich Forever and Albert Anastasia, he said, “Albert Anastasia most definitely had a significant purpose because that’s when dudes was just really understanding how I could play with my words and, more importantly, how easy it was for me. You know, I’m one of them dudes – I could go in there and put an album together in 48 hours if need be. If that’s the play, we could do that.”

While Ross isn’t putting out a new album every two hours, he has been consistent with his release schedule in recent years, dropping new LPs in 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2021.

Following the sit-down, Ross hit the stage as part of the City Sessions: 50 & Forever show held at The Rooftop at Pier 17 in New York City, a celebration to commemorate hip-hop’s 50th anniversary. To watch the performance clips from his performances as well as that of the other featured act Clipse, click here.

Louisville’s Old Forester is one the longest continually operating whiskey distilleries in the United States. Not even Prohibition could shut it down (it was one of the few distilleries that stayed open as a “medicinal” distillery during that era). That history has led to a lot of great bourbons and ryes, which have helped define multiple eras of whiskey and cocktail culture since 1870.

So when OF releases a special edition of their whiskey, people pay attention. President’s Choice and Birthday Bourbon are the classic impossible-to-actually-get Old Forester bourbons. And The 117 Series has quickly become the newest addition to that group.

The latter is why I’m here today. Old Forester just released a brand-new The 117 Series bourbon and I’ve been lucky enough to try it a few times and form an opinion. Below, I’m going to break down what’s in the bottle, how it tastes, and how to actually find this elusive bottle.

Spoiler alert, it’s worth the effort to track down and at least try. Okay, that’s enough preamble, let’s dive right in!

• The 100 Best Bourbon Whiskeys From Kentucky, Ranked
• The Absolute Best Bottle Of Whiskey From Each Of The 50 States
• Our Head Drinks Critic Reveals The Expensive Bourbons He *Won’t* Pay Above Retail For
• The 100 Best Bourbons That *Aren’t* From Kentucky, Ranked
• The 100 Best Bourbons Under $100 Right Now, Ranked

Old Forester The 117 Series Bottled in Bond Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 50%

Average Price: $59

The Whiskey:

This new edition of the much sought-after The 117 Series is a throwback to old-school bottled-in-bond bottlings. The whiskey in the bottle was distilled in Louisville back in the spring of 2014 and filled into new oak in the same distilling season — as per bottled-in-bond law. That whiskey spent nine years mellowing before select barrels were chosen, batched, and proofed down with local water.

The focus was to take a one-time look at Old Forester bourbon that shines the brightest when proofed to bottled-in-bond levels.

Tasting Notes:

Nose: Blackberry hand pies iced in powdered sugar dance with a sense of vanilla buttercream, nutmeg-heavy eggnog, apricot brandy-infused marzipan, and a slight sense of an old cellar floor deep in the background.

Palate: The palate leans toward stewed pear and rich marmalade with a dark sense of cherry fruit leather, old dates, and figs before a rush of winter spice barks dipped in caramelized apple cider leads to sticky spearmint syrup-soaked tobacco.

Finish: That vanilla buttercream creates a luscious end with vibrant notes of stewed apricot, more marmalade, blackberry pie, and this whisper of mint tea cut with piney honey.

Bottom Line:

This is a delicious whiskey. It’s fruity — like many Old Forester bourbons — but goes so much deeper. This is a great sipper that feels almost summer thanks to all the berries. It also feels a bit like a dessert whiskey. It’s versatile and delicious, is what I’m getting at.

Ranking:

91/100 — There might be a few better 10-year-old bottled-in-bond bourbons (the closest analogs to this, really) but there aren’t many.

Where To Buy:

Here’s the rub. This is highly allocated. And unless you were in the right retailers in Kentucky in July, there’s exactly zero chance of getting this at MSRP. But as with all these highly allocated Old Foresters bourbons (The 117 Series, President’s Choice, and Birthday Bourbon), you will see these at select high-end bars, at auction, and on the secondary market for much-inflated prices.

The last edition of The 117 Series is available for around $400. Take that as an indicator of what you’re going to have to pay to get this one too.

Earlier this summer, ESPN went through a second round of layoffs, this time targeting some of its highest priced on-air talent. Included in those layoffs were a number of longtime employees like Suzy Kolber as well as two pillars of the network’s NBA coverage in Jalen Rose and Jeff Van Gundy.

With the news that Van Gundy was being let go, many wondered if Mark Jackson’s future with the network was in question, particularly with rumblings Doc Rivers and Doris Burke would be taking the seats alongside Mike Breen in the lead broadcast booth. Sure enough on Monday, Jackson confirmed he had likewise been let go by ESPN, ending a tenure of more than a decade with the network. While NBA fans have long been split on Van Gundy and Jackson as a pair, it’s a massive shift for ESPN and those who worked with them for so long, most notably Breen.

On Tuesday, Andrew Marchand of the New York Post spoke with Breen, who noted his surprise and sadness at having his longtime broadcast team broken up so suddenly, while calling them “dream partners” and lifelong friends.

“They were the dream partners,” Breen said. “All the accomplishments were because of what we did together. I really do feel personally any success I had was because I had those two guys next to me. They just provided everything you would want in analysts. They’re smart. They’re funny. They’re knowledgeable about their sport. They’re opinionated. They love their sport, but are not afraid to criticize. They just had a little bit of everything.

“And we came off a Finals that we were so proud of. It was another Finals together and it was really a great story of Denver winning for the first time and we were on a high after it was all done so to come to grips with that was our final telecast is hard.

Breen declined to speak about the reported pair of Burke and Rivers joining him next year, understandably not wanting to heap any praise on new partners while the focus is on his two friends who have been ousted by the network. It is the difficult part of the business, and Breen notes in the interview that he knows how rare it is to have had that partnership with Van Gundy and Jackson for as long as they did. Still, it doesn’t change the shock of a decision Breen certainly didn’t foresee coming, and next year’s NBA on ESPN broadcasts will sound significantly different.

Following one of Drake’s recent shows, a girl named Veronica Correia has gone viral after she threw her 36G bra onstage and the rapper took notice. Since then, the 21-year-old got a reported offer from Playboy and is buzzing in the news.

Now, in a new interview with the Club Ambition podcast, she is sharing her side of the story — and some reveals about her DMs with Drake after it happened.

“He slid up on a story and just laughed at one,” Correia said. “I took a day or two to respond. You know, ’cause I just didn’t know what to say, so I just liked it. And then I wrote out this paragraph basically just thanking him for the experience, like an awesome show. And then I told him that I own the coffee shop in Cumberland and asked him just if he liked coffee and how he likes it.”

As she pointed out, Drake revealed that he takes his coffee “iced and sweet” and continued to laugh at all of her messages. The rapper also commented on the fact that she’s really “sought after” right now.

“He said just to live your amazing life like people are faceless and they would never really say the negative comments to you,” she continued. “So, that was like, ‘Awww!’”

Check out the interview clip above.

The New Orleans Pelicans started the 2022-23 season off red hot, jumping up into the top half of the Western Conference playoff race behind some stellar play from their stars, as Zion Williamson was playing at an All-Star level and Brandon Ingram was enjoying the best season of his career. However, as has been the story far too often for the Pelicans in recent years, the inability to stay healthy derailed what looked to be a team taking the leap.

Brandon Ingram suffered a toe injury in late November that kept him out for two months, while Williamson played 29 games before having his season ended by a hamstring injury that he aggravated multiple times during his ramp up to returning to the court. It was an all too familiar refrain for the Pelicans, who fought their way into the Play-In as the 9-seed, but lost the first game to the Thunder, unable to replicate their run to the postseason in 2022. However, the form they showed in the first third of the season makes it hard not to believe in the potential of this team, provided they can all stay on the court — which has proven to be an insurmountable hurdle thus far.

There aren’t many holes in the roster when healthy, with some terrific, versatile complementary players around their young star duo, along with a veteran secondary star in CJ McCollum. For that reason, they’ve stayed mostly quiet this offseason, hoping next season can finally be the one where they can evaluate what this group’s ceiling truly is.

Here we’ll grade out the Pelicans offseason moves in the Draft, free agency and contract extensions, and on the trade market.

Draft: B

The Pelicans had the last pick in the lottery at No. 14, and used it on Jordan Hawkins out of UConn. The 6’5 shooting guard was one of the best shooters in this year’s Draft, and his ability to fly around screens and knock down shots could get him into some regular season action this year on the back end of the rotation. As our Brad Rowland noted on Draft night, there’s work to do on the other end of the court, but the shooting is an immediate NBA skill and that’s always a good thing to add to your roster.

New Orleans doesn’t have a ton of glaring needs, but more shooting is something the Pelicans can use. Hawkins brings it as the best off-ball mover in the class and a proven, dynamic shooter. He’s not a great defender and has limited size on the wing, but the offense should play.

Free Agency/Contract Extensions: B+

The Pelicans haven’t made a lot of moves this summer, and their one significant signing came as a bit of a surprise when they declined Herbert Jones’ very cheap team option in favor of signing him to a long-term deal. Jones agreed to a 4-year, $54 million deal with the Pelicans when free agency opened, as New Orleans locks up one of the league’s premier defensive wings for the foreseeable future. While they could’ve had him for under $2 million next season, I do like this move for the Pelicans because they effectively got to negotiate this deal with him before he really explored what the open market could’ve been next summer. For someone with his talents on the defensive end, $13.5 million per year is a pretty good value, especially given the importance of having a versatile wing defender like that on this roster to alleviate the pressure on their stars.

Elsewhere, the Pelicans have been quiet, signing Cody Zeller to a minimum deal to backup Jonas Valanciunas as Zeller comes off a solid close to the season in Miami. They also re-signed EJ Liddell, which was good to see after Liddell’s knee injury at Summer League a year ago. Otherwise, this team will look an awful lot like last year’s, which is understandable as they have a deep roster already and just need the high-end guys to stay healthy to allow that depth to shine around them rather than asking them to fill a void they simply cannot.

Trades: INC

The Pelicans have stayed away from the trade market this summer, albeit there were some rumblings they were interested in pursuing the No. 2 or No. 3 pick due to their infatuation with Scoot Henderson. Ultimately nothing came of those talks, as they reportedly balked at requests for Brandon Ingram. The most interesting thing to come out of the Pelicans trade rumors this summer was there was no pushback on the reports Zion Williamson was involved in talks, indicating that was at least a consideration — albeit with a very high asking price in return.

While publicly all parties involved have continued to insist they’re still excited about their future together, the dynamics between Zion and the Pelicans are going to be fascinating to watch going forward, as it’s understandable why the team would be frustrated to this point with their hopeful franchise cornerstone. His struggles staying on the court, coupled with his stumbles into off court headlines this summer, make for headaches internally, but there’s no denying that when he’s played he has been nothing short of sensational. This year they’re running it back one more time in hopes to finally see what all this could become, but if there are more injury issues, there’s only so long you can stay patient before making significant changes.

Ron DeSantis continued to take a beating this week as the ladies of The View called out the Florida governor for his “disgusting” remarks on slavery that earned him condemnation from Black Republicans.

At issue is new state curriculum that whitewashes slavery by teaching students that, actually, slaves benefitted from their time in captivity because they learned a valuable trade. DeSantis and Florida quickly became the target of widespread and surprisingly bipartisan condemnation. In response, the governor dug in his heels even more and refused to back down.

The View‘s resident conservative, Alyssa Farah Griffin, joined her fellow Republicans in dragging DeSantis over the new curriculum and his stubborn reaction to his own party. Co-host Whoopi Goldberg also offered her blunt thoughts

Via Mediaite:

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: It’s disgusting. But I want to point out every pretty much every prominent Black Republican, including some of the most Trumpy to the really moderate, decent guys like Will Hurd, came out and said, “You are wrong on this.” They condemned him and he doubled down. He started arguing with them.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: That’s what stupid people do.

Griffin took her comments even further by calling out DeSantis’ inner circle.

“How dare the white men around Ron DeSantis, and him included, Blacksplain to Black Republicans how they should feel about slavery?” Griffin said before shouting out Tim Scott, Byron Donalds, Wesley Hunt, and Will Hurd for showing “real leadership” by standing up to DeSantis.

(Via Mediaite)

Ex-President Donald Trump is staring down a possible (probable?) third indictment. If this happens, you can expect him to react in his usual way (by declaring that the country is going to hell), but what of his hangers on? First off, if you have already lost count of the specifics on the first criminally charged current-or-ex-U.S.-president, CNN has published a handy guide where you can view the whole interactive mess in one go.

Beyond the actual legalities, Trump is now finding that he’s pretty bummed about his inner circle’s (perhaps emotional) fallout over his indictments. And some MAGA diehards do take the news in a dejected way. Fox And Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade is over there visibly deflating whenever it happens. Trump also allegedly dreads informing Melania about new charges. As he recently told The John Fredericks Show, Trump counts this as one of his least favorite bits of information to deliver to his wife:

“It’s always unpleasant when you have to go in and tell your wife that, ‘By the way, tomorrow sometime I’m going to be indicted’ … And she says, ‘For what?’ And I say, ‘I have no idea. I have absolutely no idea.’”

The “I have no idea” is wild, although not unexpected. It’s hard to believe that anyone truly thought that storing classified documents in a bathroom was appropriate, and that’s only the beginning of Trump’s legal shenanigans. That’s an entirely different subject, however, and when it comes to informing Melania next time this happens, perhaps he should simply suggest that she check his Truth Social page? He airs it all out there without qualms.

Two birds, one stone, etc. Efficient.

(Via Business Insider & CNN)

Happy August! It’s hard to believe just how fast the summer has flown, but there’s still so much new pop music to be excited about. This week finds a pleasant mix of upbeat new releases, a special remix from a longtime band, some slower stuff to help us shift into fall, and much much more. As always, it’s an honor to be sharing these each week, and hope you all enjoy.

Continue scrolling for Uproxx’s Best New Pop roundup.

Carly Rae Jepsen — “Psychedelic Switch”

Carly Rae Jepsen returned this weekend with her brand new The Loveliest Time album — a counter version of her 2022 release, The Loneliest Time. So far, the one that has fans talking the most is “Psychedelic Switch,” combining the record’s dance and disco influences with a trippy instrumental breakdown toward the end, as Jepsen’s voice loops over and over.

Busted, Jonas Brothers — “Year 3000 2.0”

Casual Jonas Brothers listeners might not know that one of their biggest hits, “Year 3000,” is actually a cover of a track first made by the band Busted. Because of this, the two decided to join forces for a fun collaboration that blends their two takes on it together.

Holly Humberstone, D4vd — “Superbloodmoon”

Another preview of her upcoming album, Paint My Bedroom Black, Holly Humberstone brought along D4vd for “Superbloodmoon.” Pulling inspiration from the rare eclipse occasion of the moon turning red, the two musicians reminisce on finding comfort in knowing they’re looking at the same sky.

Anne-Marie, Khalid — “You & I”

“It’s just a really beautiful song, and I’m so glad that Khalid did it as well, because his voice just fit perfectly,” Anne-Marie shared about “You & I” in an interview with Apple Music. “When I listen to that song, it makes me emotional. Because I don’t think I ever thought that I would find love like it. When you find that person, nothing else matters. Everything is OK and every element of life is easier.”

Calvin Harris, Sam Smith — “Desire”

Years after Calvin Harris and Sam Smith last worked together in 2018, the pair reunited for “Desire.” With Smith’s powerfully recognizable vocals and Harris being the guiding light on production, it is in good company among this year’s summer hits.

Eladio Carrión — “6pm En Mallorca”

For Eladio Carrión‘s new song, “6pm En Mallorca,” he pulled the title inspiration partially from Drake’s previous songs, according to Genius. However, the freestyle is entirely his own as he reflects on his career status.

Delaney Bailey — “Bloomington”

Delaney Bailey’s “Bloomington” kicks off her new EP, What We Leave Behind, and is an excellent choice, as her voice immediately captivates listeners with a haunting quality. “You’ll see the same horizon / Maybe 20 more times,” she points out, as the lyrics go on to paint an emotional picture.

Laufey – “Bewitched”

The title track from her forthcoming fall album, Laufey’s “Bewitched” is a dreamy spin that pushes the boundaries of what pop music can be in an incredibly creative way, with the help of a moody orchestral instrumentation.

Tori Kelly — “Cut”

Tori Kelly’s new EP, Tori, opens with “Cut,” setting the tone with a spin on a love song. “I’m the exception / Hit the drum on your heart / Baby, we caught a rhythm,” Kelly sings, as it leads into the catchy pre-chorus.

Ashnikko — “Cheerleader”

As a tongue-in-cheek way of pushing back against society’s standards of beauty, Ashnikko’s latest, “Cheerleader,” finds her tossing in references to Bring It On to help drive home the point.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

In every presidential election, the “beer question” pops up: which candidate would you rather have a beer with? The answer isn’t Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis held a campaign event in New Hampshire over the weekend. Tickets originally cost $50 to drink beer with the Disney-feuding Florida governor, but NBC News reports they were slashed to $1 due to low sales. Even still, “by the time the event started, an hour late, there were just 30 people in the room.”

DeSantis doesn’t have the juice — but he has lots of leftover beer.

Originally, organizers had made the event free to members of [the New Hampshire Home Builders Association] and charged $50 per ticket for nonmembers. But in an effort to pack the room, the association dropped the price to $1 for nonmembers — a nominal fee designed to prevent tickets from being reserved by malicious actors. “I charged a token $1 because the ‘bots’ fill up events with bad emails,” association executive director Matt Mayberry said in a text exchange with NBC News.

The low attendance for the “FREE BEER! Now That I’ve Got Your Attention, Vote For Ron” campaign stop was roasted by reporter Jonathan Allen on MSNBC. When asked by anchor Ana Cabrera if DeSantis is “just not the kind of guy people want to have a beer with,” he replied, “Maybe they should have offered something harder, Ana… Maybe half a bottle of liquor or something.”

Maybe a gallon of milk is more Ron’s speed.

(Via NBC News)