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We’re only days away from the highly anticipated release of Taylor Swift‘s new album Midnights, which she announced the night of the MTV VMAs and for which she has since unveiled the tracklist.

Preparation for the release has been extravagant, which is obvious from the merch alone. Her website includes a vinyl clock, a vinyl collector’s case, a Jade Green Edition vinyl, a Moonstone Blue Edition vinyl, a Mahogany Edition vinyl, a Blood Moon Edition vinyl, a Jade Green Edition CD, a Moonstone Blue Edition CD, a Mahogany Edition CD, a Blood Moon Edition CD, a bejeweled bracelet, a backpack, a brown album cover hoodie, brown sweatpants, a duffle bag, a colorblock crewneck, a Green Ringer T-shirt, a blue hoodie, an album cover tank, an album cover longsleeve, an album cover ringer T-shirt, an album cover T-shirt, and a water bottle. Scroll through all of these items here.

About the record, Swift has said, “This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching — hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve … We’ll meet ourselves.”

There’s been a lot of books about the Trump presidency, and to that towering pile you can add an audiobook. Bob Woodward, one of the reporters who blew open the Watergate scandal, is releasing The Trump Tapes, which features eight hours of interviews he conducted with the former presidency from 2016 through this year. Excerpts have already been made available, and wouldn’t you know they reveal him just casually showing the legendary journalist some letters he would later take with him to Mar-a-Lago, despite admitting, on tape, that they’re highly classified.

In one exchange, from December of 2019, Trump can be heard handing letters written to him by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, intimating that he shouldn’t be doing what he’s doing.

“Nobody else has them,” he brags. He then tells Woodward to “treat them with respect,” adding, “And don’t say I gave them to you, okay?”

A month later, Woodward asked Trump if he can see the letter he wrote to Kim, but Trump tells him, “Oh, those are so top secret.”

There are 27 letters between Trump and Kim, which were among those that he took with him to the resort in which he now lives. Since the FBI raided his home, leaving with boxes and boxes of documents, Trump has thrown one defense after another against the wall, including saying they weren’t sensitive. This is audio admission that he knew the opposite.

But then, maybe as the criminal investigation into his improper handling of government documents continues — ditto his many other worries — he can always go back to the claim that he could declassify them with his mind.

(Via The Washington Post)

Marco Rubio has been in Congress since 2011, and there’s a good chance he’ll be there a while longer, despite his spinelessness and wacko efforts to connect with the common voter. But even if the senator and Trump apologist holds his lead against his opponent, Florida representative Val Demings, into Election Day, at least he had to endure having his ass repeatedly handed to him during their first and only debate.

Rubio, to his credit, did his best to hold his own, when he wasn’t having a flop-sweated meltdown while being scolded. But Demings — who’s been trailing behind Rubio for months, and was down 6% in a poll from earlier this month — found repeated chances to let Rubio have it on a number of issues: abortion, gun control, his sketchy track record voting for legislation that could help his constituents.

For instance, here’s Demings hammering him on his stance on abortion, specifically many Republicans’ belief that there should be a total ban.

“Now, as a police detective who investigated cases of rape and incest, no, Senator, I don’t think it’s okay for a 10-year-old girl to be raped and have to carry the seed of her rapist,” she thundered. “No, I don’t think it’s okay for you to make decisions for women and girls as a Senator. I think those decisions are made between the woman, her family, her doctor, and her faith.”

Rubio, who describes himself as “100% pro-life” but claims he accepts exceptions, repeatedly dodged questions about the latter.

At one point, Rubio claimed his opponent has passed any bills during her tenure in the House. Demings responded that she’s “disappointed in you, Marco Rubio, because I think there was time in which you did not lie in order to win.”

She also dragged him for his gun control stance, especially given how he used the Orlando nightclub gun massacre to bolster his 2016 re-election campaign.

“Senator, you used the Pulse nightclub shooting as your inspiration to run again for the Senate in 2016,” she said. “Pulse is in my district. And yet, you’ve done nothing. Nothing to help address gun violence and get dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people.”

Rubio was his own worst enemy when he flailed about trying to explain why he did an about-face on his position on another mass shooting: the Parkland massacre of 2018. During that time, he vowed to support legislation to raise the age limit on AR-15s from 18 to 21. Nowadays, not so much. Nowadays his position is that “Denying the right to buy it isn’t going to keep them from doing it.”

He also didn’t do great when he made nonsensical cases against ballot drop boxes.

Demings hammered away at him during her closing statement, too, saying he “will pick and choose winners and losers based on pay-to-play.” She pointed out he voted against legislation to help reduce the cost of prescription drugs, including insulin,” all while he looked exhausted.

Again, Demings may not have much of a chance and Rubio was able to get in some licks of his own. But people really enjoyed watching him get yelled at but good.

Next month, it will be a year since Britney Spears’s conservatorship was officially terminated. A lot has happened since then: She released a song with Elton John called “Hold Me Closer,” she showed off a new haircut, and she’s opened up about her trauma.

Today, though, she shared what appears to be good news on Twitter. With a naked picture of herself, only not explicit because of her hands doing the work of censoring, she wrote: “I have a premiere for a movie this week ‘THE LEGISLATIVE ACT OF MY PUSSY’ !!!!” This is exciting, though there is no real information about this movie at all. Hopefully this will be clarified soon! Either way, the photo definitely caught many people’s attention.

To celebrate the fact that it’s almost been a year since the end of her conservatorship, she took to social media to celebrate. “Hi, so it’s been a really long time since I’ve spoken to you guys,” she said in a video. “It’s been just eight months since my conservatorship of 15 years has been over. And I’m in Mexico right now and it’s really hot and […] joy to you all.” The video then cut to clips of Spears at what looks like some sort of street fair, hanging out with a small monkey whose owner named it Justin Bieber.

The 2022 NBA season kicked off on Tuesday night with a matchup between the Philadelphia 76ers and the reigning conference champs, the Boston Celtics. The two teams usually square off in pretty tense affairs, and through the first half on Tuesday, that continued to be the case: Philly and Boston were tied at 63 heading into the locker room at halftime and didn’t show all that much rust after a long offseason.

James Harden was sensational in the first half, going for 22 points on 5-for-9 shooting and a 4-for-7 clip from behind the free throw line with some absolutely sensational grifting to get to the free throw line eight times. There was, however, one moment where he showed some of that rust, as Harden sent Marcus Smart (who, to be clear, might’ve embellished this a bit) flying with a crossover.

In a callback to his famous crossover on Wesley Johnson, Harden did a little shimmy after Smart hit the deck. Unfortunately for Harden, he could not finish the job, as he threw up a really terrible brick.

Harden did make up for this a little later, when he threw up this prayer that got answered by the basketball gods.

Still, we think The Beard is gonna want that first shot back.

In between parading the phrase “White Lives Matter” and making anti-Semitic tweets, Kanye West also spread misinformation about George Floyd when he was invited on was to appear on the podcast Drink Champs on Oct. 15.

The rapper spoke about the conspiracy documentary The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd And The Rise of BLM, which perpetuates the theory that Floyd died as a result of drug use and not at the hands of the police. “They hit him with the fentanyl,” West said. “If you look, the guy’s knee wasn’t even on his neck like that.” Multiple autopsies have confirmed that Floyd died from a heart attack caused by asphyxia, the inability to breathe.

A press release from the Witherspoon Law Group and Dixon & Dixon Attorneys at Law stated that Roxie Washington, acting on behalf of her minor child, the sole beneficiary of Floyd’s estate, filed a suit against Kanye West, seeking $250 million in damages. It argues that Kanye’s comments on Drink Champs constituted “harassment, misappropriation, defamation, and infliction of emotional distress.” It also names West’s “business partners and associates,” according to the press release.

NORE, the podcast host, has since apologized, saying, “I felt like I could control the interview. And I learned early on that I [couldn’t]. As a Black man, I feel like I failed. As a human, I feel like I failed.”

You might remember Mike Lee as one of the many lawmakers who ended up with COVID following Donald Trump’s infamous 2020 Rose Garden Super-Spreader Event. Or as the Republican who spent an entire night tweeting about how democracy is bad, but “prospefity” is not. He’s also one of the Republicans whose texts with former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows show him being quite happy to help push lies in an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, though he’s now attempting to deny any of that happened.

Not surprisingly, Lee is also one of the many MAGA politicians facing the possibility of being unseated come November. But Evan McMullin, an independent candidate for Lee’s senate seat, was not about to let his opponent get away with not talking about his role in plotting to overturn the will of the American public. On Monday night, the two met on the debate stage and, as HuffPost reports, McMullin did NOT let up on Lee or his lies.

The former CIA agent told Lee that he thought about his many former colleagues who, on January 6, 2021, “left the warmth of their homes and the love of their families to risk their lives, not knowing if they would ever come home, in order to stop terrorists who were intent on destroying freedom in America… We trusted you. And with that trust — and with your knowledge of the Constitution, Senator Lee — you sought to find a weakness in our system. You advised the White House: Find an alternative slate of electors for Trump to overturn the will of the people.”

McMullin also took a dig at “legal quack Sidney Powell,” who Lee apparently pushed to have be a part of their failed attempt at election fraud. “It is a betrayal of the American republic,” McMullin told Lee. “You were there to stand up for our Constitution. But when the barbarians were at the gate, you were happy to let them in.”

When it was finally time for Lee, who sat smiling like a Republican robot throughout McMullin’s dressing-down, to speak, he stated that he disagreed “with everything my opponent just said, including the words ‘but,’ ‘and,’ and ‘the.’” (Which is a line you know he had been saving up for just the right occasion.) He went on to claim that “there is absolutely nothing to the idea that I would have ever supported — ever did support — a fake electors plot. Nothing. There’s not a scintilla of evidence suggesting that.”

Well, no evidence except for Lee’s texts to Meadows, which the senator attempted to explain away by claiming he was looking into “rumors” about alternate slates of electors. Which is awfully convenient.

Still, Lee insisted that “it’s not true” then told Lee: “You owe me an apology.”

McMullin, who was not about to apologize, also brought up the possibility of Lee having connections to Russia, noting that the incumbent is “remarkably the only member of Utah’s congressional delegation not to be blacklisted by Vladimir Putin,” wryly noting that it’s “an incredible distinction.”

A poll conducted earlier this month had Lee leading McMullin by approximately four percentage points.

(Via HuffPost)

After two very long years of travel restrictions and border closures, travel to Europe is truly back in full force — just in time for our Fall Travel Hot List (check last year’s edition here)! In the initial days of the pandemic, Italy was one of the countries hit the hardest by Covid-19 but since June of this year, the borders have opened without restrictions. Meaning even if you want to hit the peninsula for just a few days between travels, you can do so without the need to quarantine upon arrival or take a single Covid test. And as a result of these loosened restrictions along with flights dropping like crazy this fall, traveling through Europe in general and Italy in specifc is poised to be very big this year.

Italy is full of cities and small villages worth visiting — Rome, Venice and Milan come to mind — but few offer as condensed an experience as Sicily. Great beaches, beautiful geography, ancient ruins, and amazing food. Sicily has everything you’d hope to find on the mainland all packed into 9,927 square miles. But if you’re going to visit the island off the tip of the boot, you’re going to need some great recommendations to get your journey started.

To help provide a well-informed guide, we hit locals who know the area well, electronic duo Mathame. Few artists make music as dreamy, textural, and of another world as these Italian electronic beatmakers. The duo, consisting of brothers Amedeo and Matteo Giovanelli, craft cinematic and moody electronic soundscapes that transport the listener through a world of icy arpeggiated synths, heavily treated vocals, and emotionally propulsive beats, best exemplified by their latest single, “Come For You.”

The duo cites their hometown, Sicily’s Mt. Etna, as a major source of inspiration for their sound, which makes total sense as Mathame makes music that is at times sparse before it explodes into something enchanting, moving, and highly emotional. I’ve never watched a volcano erupting, but if I did, I’d want the moment soundtracked by this band. We linked up with the brothers to learn more about Sicily’s hidden gems and get some travel suggestions for when you find yourself on the island.

Best Place In Sicily to grab a bite to eat?

La Vecchia Posta

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In Sicily, food is the answer. But the Etna area is special because raw ingredients from the ground are filled with volcanic ash that is full of nutrients for vegetables. So imagine dope vegetables ready to be cooked — that’s why everything is so sweet and full of taste. If we are talking about meat and fish: for meat, the community of Etna had a very special way to cook meat, like wild pig of Etna, but the king is the fish: at the foot of Mount Etna.

Our favorite place is La Vecchia Posta, in Mascali, the best fish on the entire slope.

Best place to take in the sights/nature?

Valle del Bove

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Nature, however, is the undisputed queen. On this side of Sicily, nature is not what you expect from a sea island, the volcano is another place. Moon landscape, forests, big rocks of lava, it’s one of the places in the world where you can ski and see the sea at the same time. The best places are Valle del Bove, the Craters, Nicolosi, and Linguagloss — where nature seems to disappear but is there pulsating with huge volcanic eruptions and snow at the same time.

These are actually mystical places where absence reveals the presence of something infinitely greater.

Best place in Sicily to grab a pizza

Delizi Del Palato

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Sicily is about a different kind of pizza, very different from Neapolitan pizza. Here it is done with semolina, a substitute for wheat that is more strong and wild. So you will find different pizzas, fried pizzas, and a lot of versions of street food. On this side of Sicily, there are a lot of pizzerias but where we connect is Pizza Pino.

As every Italian knows, there is no way to judge the best pizza: it simply doesn’t exist. The best pizza for us is something really subjective. Usually, the best pizza is the one you eat every week, the one you’re most connected with. That’s why that pizzeria — next to our previous house — is the best in Sicily!

Best place to get lost and wander?

The Inland

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There are so many places where you can get lost and wander. For example, the inland gives glimpses out of time and out of this world, dry desert and just a few villages, very similar to each other, with farms and flocks of cows.

You get lost there and you lose time, it seems to be frozen at the beginning of the century.

What is one thing people visiting Sicily have to experience?

Visit the Aeolian Islands

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Absolutely, one thing to do is to visit the Aeolian Islands, a day but absolutely worth it, this is the place where the Mediterranean and volcanoes are in a unique and absolute setting. The hidden gem, on the other hand, is the Alcantara gorges, a river near the sea with rapids and Mexican cenote scenery, where you can have a full day’s adventure and rails very wild on the rapid.

Where are the best places to stay in the area and why?

An Agriturismo in Etna

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To stay, instead of Taormina (a bit touristy), for a rawer experience, we would suggest a family-run agriturismo on the side of Eastern Etna, where you can relax watching the volcano and wait for the next eruption, experience great food and have a perfect sleep with the proverbial hospitality of a Sicilian Family. You will see, the hospitality here is a religion.

From morning to night, describe the perfect Sicily itinerary.

Living The Mt. Etna Lifestyle

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A typical day would be to get up by the sea, enjoy the sylvan beach of Calatabiano, San Marco, and then have a lunch of fresh fish directly from the fish market. Get some rest at the sea and then in the afternoon, go hike to Mount Etna with your cameras and video equipment. You will have an incredible experience but you will need a local guide (there are many) that can bring you to the next level of the hiking session. And then, the Etna tour will make you hungry, so, going down from the craters, stop in the evening and refresh yourself with the family cuisine of Etna’s agriturismi, where you can sleep under the starry sky.

Sylvester Stallone didn’t initially want to do Creed. When future Black Panther director Ryan Coogler approached him with the idea of doing a Rocky spin-off about the son of Carl Weathers’ Apollo Creed, an actor who’s repeatedly returned to his old beloved characters proved hesitant. Obviously he changed his mind, and the reward was some of the best reviews of his career and his first acting Oscar nomination since the original Rocky. He returned for 2018’s sequel, but will he back for Creed III?

The answer, revealed earlier this year, is no. Neither Stallone nor Michael B. Jordan — who also directed the forthcoming threequel — went into specifics about the reason for Rocky being AWOL. But Jordan intimated that it was Stallone’s idea.

“I think that Sly let it be known that he wasn’t coming back for this one but I think, you know, his essence and his spirit… there’s always going to be a little bit of Rocky within Adonis,” Jordan told IGN in April. “But this is a Creed franchise, and we really want to build this story and this world around him moving forward. So, it’s always respect and always a shit-ton of love for what he’s built, but we really want to push and navigate Adonis forward and the family that he created. So, hopefully you guys will love what I’m thinking… what we’re cooking up. I think it’s going to be something special.”

Stallone has been saying he was done playing Rocky Balboa, the character that made his name, and while Creed II stopped short of giving him a death scene, it did end on a lovely, bittersweet farewell. Since exiting the franchise (at least for now), he’s still weighed in on it. Over the summer, when it was announced that Viktor Drago — the son of Dolph Lundgren’s Rocky IV opponent Ivan Drago and the adversary of Creed II — might be getting his own spinoff. The news sent Stallone into a tailspin, which inspired Lundgren himself to try and talk him down.

The Rocky-less Creed III hits theaters on March 3, 2023.

In July, Red Hot Chili Peppers announced that they’re releasing a new album called Return Of The Dream Canteen. It follows their twelfth album Unlimited Love, which came out earlier this year. First they teased the new LP with the lead single “Tippa My Tongue,” then they unveiled the tracklist, revealing that it’s a double album.

Another single included a heartfelt tribute to Eddie Van Halen called “Eddie.” “Eddie Van Halen was a one of a kind,” Kiedis wrote about the song. “Sometimes we don’t realize how deeply affected and connected we are to artists until the day they die. The day after his death, Flea came into rehearsal with an emotional bass line. John [Frusciante], Chad [Smith], and I started playing along and pretty soon with all our hearts, a song in his honor effortlessly unfolded. It felt good to be sad and care so much about a person who had given so much to our lives.”

About working on the album, the band said on their website, “We went in search of ourselves as the band that we have somehow always been. Just for the fun of it we jammed and learned some old songs. Before long we started the mysterious process of building new songs.”

The album arrived Oct. 14 and is available now via Warner Records.

Red Hot Chili Peppers is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.