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The brothers Lopez went toe-to-toe on Wednesday night in Cleveland. Robin, who didn’t play on the evening, came out on top — the Cavs won, 114-106 — while Brook had 14 points, six rebounds, two assists, two steals, and a block in 28 minutes of work. He was also on the receiving end of some absolutely scalding trash talk, all thanks to his twin brother.

TNT mic’d Robin up for the game, and at one point, Brook decided to embellish a little bit of contact and draw a foul as a result. The next time Robin got a chance to talk to a referee, he revealed a detail about his brother’s past as proof that this was a flop.

“That’s a flop,” Robin said. “He’s an actor. I know, he was in West Side Story. He was Officer Krupke.”

This made the referee laugh, which is almost certainly what Robin was going for here. Anyway, a 2006 Los Angeles Times story confirms that Brook “recently played a police officer in a class production of West Side Story.” While it has been a while since I have seen West Side Story, I do not believe that there is a scene where Officer Krupke gets nudged by Evan Mobley and draws a foul on the Cavaliers star.

You never know when a multi-millionaire supermodel, actress, and author is one swipe away. On Thursday’s episode of the High Low with EmRata podcast, Emily Ratajkowski revealed that she recently joined a dating app for the first time. “I was like, f*ck it,” she said. “I was feeling defiant because so many people told me not to get it.”

Ratajkowski, who was married to Sebastian Bear-McClard from 2018 to 2022, created the account on the non-disclosed app while drinking wine, as one does. The My Body writer, who identifies as bisexual and believes “sexuality is on a sliding scale,” has already “gotten a few direct requests from women which is exciting,” but doesn’t expect to stay on the app for long. “I feel like this app is a little bit white,” Ratajkowski added. “It’s very white and feels like a very particular man and very particular type of woman, so I don’t think I’m gonna meet my lady crush on here.”

As for her other alleged crush, Pete Davidson, the pair are getting “more serious” after being spotted in public together, a source told Page Six. They have “similar vibes personality-wise and style-wise,” and Davidson “really makes her laugh and keeps things fun.” This has all the makings of a romantic-comedy: two close friends help each other with their dating profiles, even though it’s obvious they should be together. Will they realize true love has been in front of them this whole thing?

Find out when APPetite For Love comes to Peacock in 2024.

(Via Page Six)

Most kids are busy trying to convince their parents they need a new thing added to their Christmas list a few days before the big day. But 12-year-old Jonathan “J.J.” Werner in Cambridge, Minnesota, stays busy making sure other kids have something under their Christmas tree. He really takes his service projects seriously.

Last year, the young Scout worked to provide Christmas gifts for children in foster care in two Minnesota counties. This year, he added kids currently living in domestic violence shelters to the list. Jonathan raised money by participating in a popcorn fundraiser. He told KARE 11 in 2021, “I adopted all the foster care kids in Kanabec County and Isanti County for Christmas.”

There were up to 120 kids in foster care in the two counties and Jonathan was able to provide a present for each of them, with the help of his mom’s minivan. He made more than $46,194 in popcorn sales, and this year he beat that number by $10,000, selling $56,396 worth of popcorn.

In the United States, there are currently 407,000 children in foster care, with 34% of them being cared for by relatives. There isn’t a set organization that universally provides Christmas gifts for children placed in foster care. Whether children in care receive gifts or not depends on the foster family if there’s no special program from the state or if biological parents don’t provide them. This can leave children without anything to open on a holiday where they will surely be asked at school what Santa brought them.

Thanks to Jonathan and his sleigh-driving mom, nearby children in difficult situations won’t have to go without on Christmas day. The preteen Santa knows just how important it is for kids in foster care to feel loved because he knows someone that has experienced living in foster homes, his own dad.

“My dad spent 14 years in foster care and based upon stories that he had being in foster care, it doesn’t really sound like they had much of a Christmas,” Jonathan told KARE 11. With more and more programs popping up to help foster children experience a good Christmas, things have definitely improved some since Jonathan’s dad was in foster care, according to Isanti Health and Human Services Supervisor Ann Stackpool-Gunderson, as reported by KARE 11.

Jonathan was determined to do his part and other Scouts pitched in to help wrap gifts. It was a team effort that carried on to this year when Jonathan was able to buy even more toys with the money he raised. The amount of determination he has is admirable.

With the help of his team of elves and his mom, all the gifts were successfully dropped off at their respective locations to be distributed. Turns out this Scout may have a future in social work if he takes the Kanabec County supervisor up on his offer to apply for a job there when he’s older.

Seeing someone so young take the time out of their holiday season to do something so selfless gives me the warm and fuzzies. I hope he continues to have success in this big undertaking in the future, because everyone deserves a little extra love during the holiday season.

Lee Plaza in Roanoke, Virginia, was named for Robert E. Lee, and up until 2020, it was home to a monument to the famed Confederate general. In the racial justice protests of 2020, however, the monument was toppled and then removed. And in 2021, the city council voted to split the renaming of the plaza, with part becoming Freedom Plaza and the section where Lee’s monument stood becoming Henrietta Lacks Plaza.

In a move that reflects the nation’s ongoing reckoning with its racial history, a statue of Lacks will soon be erected in the city of her birth, right where the Lee monument stood. At an event at the site this week, artist Bryce Cobbs unveiled a full-sized rendering of Lacks, upon which the new statue will be designed.

Henrietta Lacks was a Black American woman and mother of five who was diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer in 1951. While she was being treated at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, a doctor snipped cells from her cervix without her knowledge or consent. Lacks died of the aggressive cancer at age 31, but her cells lived on … and on and on, much to the surprise of Dr. George Gey, the researcher who studied them.

Unlike other patients’ cells, which had always quickly died in Gey’s lab, Lacks’ cells doubled every 20 to 24 hours. These “immortal” cells, nicknamed HeLa cells after Lacks’ first and last name, changed modern medicine in huge ways. HeLa cells have been—and still are—used to study the effects of toxins, drugs, hormones and viruses on cancer cells, to test the effects of radiation and poisons, to develop vaccines (including the polio and COVID-19 vaccines) and to study the human genome.

The world owes Henrietta Lacks a huge debt of gratitude for the medical breakthroughs her cells have helped humanity accomplish. However, it’s also important to acknowledge the injustice that her cells were used without her consent.

In attendance at the art unveiling event were a son and grandson of Henrietta Lacks, both of whom have worked to have her story told and honored. Her grandson Ron Lacks expressed his happiness at the Roanoke event that the plaza project involved the Lacks family and that the organizers of the project had approached them first. The statue design by sculptor Larry Bechtel is set to be unveiled in October 2023.

The replacing of a Confederate monument with a statue of a Black American who contributed to the advancement of humanity feels only fitting. While we can’t right historical wrongs, we can at least acknowledge them and make sure the people we choose to celebrate with monuments are deserving of the honor.

(Emily In Paris spoilers will definitely be found below.)

Emily Cooper and friends only hit Netflix for Season 3 on December 21, but the show’s so easily digestible that a lot of people are… already done watching. Naturally, they’re now wondering (due to a cliffhanger) when they will see more. And if they will see more at all. If you are one of those interested viewers, we have good news for you.

Emily In Paris already received a Season 4 renewal, and as you can see above, this happened when the Season 3 announcement surfaced. The breezy comedy is simply too addictive despite being completely devoid of substance, but perhaps that’s one of best explanations for why this show’s a hit. Not everything needs to be completely cerebral, you know? Sometimes you simply wanna tune out of your mind and watch some soap operatics with nice scenery in a place far from home.

In other words, we’ll get to see the fallout from Gabriel and Camille’s wedding ceremony falling apart, which led to Gabriel’s revelation that Camille is pregnant, and he’s most definitely the father of this baby. Alfie has fled, and Emily and Gabriel both actually seem like they’re done dancing around their attraction and screwing people over, but will they actually happen? I’m guessing that Gabriel will (once again) try to make it work with Camille, which probably isn’t fair to anyone at this point. Maybe Camille will decide that everyone needs to shove it.

Whatever the case, it’s wonderful news that we’ll eventually see that drama happen. No release date exists yet, but stay tuned.

Emily In Paris Season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.

Due to everything that went down last year, tensions might be high at the 2023 Academy Awards. Not because of who will win or lose an Oscar, but because we are all collectively afraid of who will make the first of the many inevitable jokes about The Slap. Yes, this year had a bunch of really good movies and whoever wins will likely be very deserving. But we also know how much these hosts love their corny jokes, and all eyes will be on the upcoming man of the hour, which will be Jimmy Kimmel.

Kimmel will host next year’s ceremony, filling the six shoes that were left by last year’s traumatized trio. This isn’t Kimmel’s first star-studded rodeo, though, as he has hosted twice before in 2017 and 2018. So he and Oscar should be on a first-name basis by now.

You may or may not remember Kimmel’s slightly controversial bit at the 2022 Emmys where he played dead on the floor of the stage when Quinta Brunson accepted her award for Abbott Elementary. In fairness, Kimmel was under the impression that he would not be seen. Still, people were mad (though not as mad as The Slap), but the longtime friends seemed to have worked it out.

The 2023 Oscars will take place on March 12th. The nominees are slated the be announced on January 24th. Hopefully everything will go smoothly.

(Via Variety)

The Philadelphia Eagles need one more win to wrap up the NFC East and the No. 1 seed in the conference, and their first opportunity to do just that will come on Saturday afternoon against the Dallas Cowboys. The team will head into that game with their backup signal caller under center, though, as head coach Nick Sirianni announced on Thursday morning that Gardner Minshew will start the game.

“Gardner will be our guy and Gardner will be ready,” Sirianni said, per ESPN. “Gardner worked his butt off for this opportunity against a really good football team. He had a great practice [Wednesday].”

Minshew will get the start because of an injury to starting QB Jalen Hurts, who hurt his shoulder in the third quarter of the team’s win over the Chicago Bears this past Sunday. Hurts, the favorite to be named NFL MVP prior to his injury, “did everything he possibly could to get his body ready to go,” according to Sirianni.

Minshew has thrown 64 passes in his two seasons as a member of the Eagles, and has completed 67.2 percent of his attempts with four touchdowns and one interception. Philly and Dallas played earlier this season in Philadelphia, with the Eagles picking up a 26-17 win.

I’m sorry, but the pun is right there to be made: Billie Eilish is happier than ever. The seven-time Grammy winner (and Oscar winner) staged three triumphant shows at the Kia Forum in her hometown Los Angeles last week. The first featured a cameo from Labrinth. Across her weekend shows, she was joined by Dave Grohl, Phoebe Bridgers, and Childish Gambino.

On Sunday, December 18, Eilish turned 21. That called for a star-studded Hollywood party attended by the likes of the Biebers, Avril Lavigne, Doja Cat, Kendall Jenner, Lil Nas X, Noah Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo, and her boyfriend, Jesse Rutherford.

Eilish posted photos from the bash to Instagram. The carousel captures her in a festive Santa costume next to Rutherford in a matching red sweater, and the happy new couple posing in a photo booth with the Biebers — something a younger Billie would have died for.

Eilish confirmed her relationship with Rutherford, The Neighbourhood lead singer, during her sixth annual “Same Interview” with Vanity Fair, posted in late November.

“Yeah, I do, and it’s really cool. I’m really excited, and I’m really happy about it,” Eilish said in response to whether she had a boyfriend. “I managed to get my life to a point where I not only was known by a person that I thought was the hottest f*ckin’ f*cker alive but pulled his ass. Are we kidding me? Can we just [claps] — round of applause for me? Thank you. Jesse Rutherford, everyone. I pulled his ass. All me. I did that sh*t. I locked that motherf*cker down.”

No stranger to controversy, Kyrsten Sinema is under scrutiny for reportedly issuing her government staffers a 37-page guide full of diva demands like ensuring she always has room temperature water and ensuring she never, ever has the middle seat on a flight. The Arizona senator, who recently changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Independent in a blatant move to stave off a primary challenge, may be in violation of the Senate Ethics Committees for her demands that fall outside of the government-sanctioned tasks for staffers.

According to the Senate ethics handbook, “staff are compensated for the purpose of assisting Senators in their official legislative and representational duties, and not for the purpose of performing personal or other non-official activities for themselves or on behalf of others.”

We’re guessing Sinema’s demands do not fall under that umbrella. Via The Daily Beast:

One section of the staffer guide explains that the senator’s executive assistant must contact Sinema at the beginning of the work week in Washington to “ask if she needs groceries,” and copy both the scheduler and chief of staff on the message to “make sure this is accomplished.” It specifies Sinema will reimburse the assistant through CashApp. The memo also dictates that if the internet in Sinema’s private apartment fails, the executive assistant “should call Verizon to schedule a repair” and ensure a staffer is present to let a technician inside the property.

The guide is yet another damning piece of evidence that Sinema is less concerned with the business of governing and more concerned with the perks of being a United States senator. She has routinely held up legislation for the Democrats to the point where many theorized that she may change her party affiliation to Republican. Instead, she went Independent, which to be frank, is a step in that direction.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Like Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” in the music world, Elf is one of the most recent movies to join the Christmas movie canon. (The most recent: Klaus.) The 2003 film, starring Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf, the late James Caan, and a distractingly blonde Zooey Deschanel, is also still doing big business in theaters.

Deadline reports that the Alamo Drafthouse made $350,000 in ticket sales for Elf this November and December. It’s also the no talking-no texting chain’s “top all-time repertory title,” with a cumulative gross of $1.5 million. That’s on top of the approximately $220 million worldwide it made during its initial release. Not bad for a movie with a $33 million budget (most of which was spent on spaghetti, M&Ms, and chocolate syrup):

Jeff Goldstein, president of domestic distribution at Warner Bros, called Elf – which has grossed close to $173 million domestically — “one of the evergreen properties that keep doing really strong business.” He expects to end the year with about 3,700 bookings, “not bad for a movie that’s 19 years old.”

Next year, for Elf‘s 20th anniversary, the holiday screenings will be “even bigger.” But don’t expect a sequel any time soon, or ever. “We were gonna do it and I thought, ‘Oh my god, I finally got a franchise movie, I could make some money, let my kids do what the hell they want to do.’ And the director [Jon Favreau] and Will didn’t get along very well,” Caan said in 2020. “So, Will wanted to do it, he didn’t want the director, and he had it in his contract, it was one of those things.”

Instead, Ferrell made a different Christmas movie this year, while Favreau is busy with Star Wars and the MCU. They’re doing fine, if for no other reason than they have nothing to do with 2003’s other (inexplicably beloved) Christmas movie.

(Via Deadline)