Current Events
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Source: Piaras Ó Mídheach / Getty
According to reports, the senior producer for the long-running CBS investigative news program 60 Minutes resigned on Tuesday(April 22), citing a loss of journalistic independence. “Over the past months, it has … become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it,” Bill Owens wrote in a memo sent out to staff, adding, “To make independent decisions based on what was right for ‘60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.
“So, having defended this show — and what we stand for — from every angle, over time with everything I could, I am stepping aside so the show can move forward,” Owens concluded. His departure sent shockwaves through the news industry, as he was only the third person to ever hold that position in the show’s history. He maintained that he was not apologizing for the work done on the Harris interview in the memo, nor would he recommend a retraction.Observers quickly noted that the 57-year-old’s reference to losing journalistic control was tied to the show being sued initially for $10 billion recently by President Donald Trump, who took umbrage over the program’s October 2024 interview with Kamala Harris. Trump alleged that the interview was heavily edited to make him look bad. He recently upped the suit’s claims for damages to $20 billion.Another aspect of Owens’ resignation is that it comes at a tense time for CBS’ parent company, Paramount. Shari Redstone, the president, has been currying favor with Trump in order to get approval for the sale of her media conglomerate to Skydance Entertainment. Skydance Entertainment is run by David Ellison, the son of tech magnate Larry Ellison. Paramount reportedly has been in settlement talks with Trump since January. CNN’s Jake Tapper called the network out on Tuesday evening, addressing Redstone directly as he highlighted the severity of Owens’ resignation. “And that is the context of Shari Redstone’s likely bending of the knee. Hope the money’s worth it, Shari,” he said.
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Source: Marvel Studios / Thunderbolts*
Word on the streets is that Marvel Studios is back (even though they never left), according to reactions from those who saw the latest entry in the MCU, Thunderbolts*.
Fans and critics, including our very own Bernard “Beanz” Smalls, got to see Thunderbolts* ahead of its May 2 release, and the consensus is that the movie is a return to the top-tier comic book movie form we have come to expect from Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios.
Most reactions praise the film for its surprisingly emotional tone, a quality often lacking in Marvel flicks. Others are praising Florence Pugh’s performance as Yelena, who is now headlining her first film since her debut in the underrated Black Widow film and a guest appearance in the Disney+ series Hawkeye.
Pugh’s performance is being hailed as “superb,” with Beanz adding in his first reaction that she was the film’s “MVP.”
“#Thunderbolts was awesome. Tons of implications on how the MCU is moving forward. The team works well together, plenty of emotion. Yelena is my MVP. Definitely a super fun movie,” Beanz’s full reaction read.
Another reaction read, “#Thunderbolts is A24 meets Superhero character study. Raw. Fresh. Hilarious at times. Sad at others. It has you rooting for this scrappy ensemble on the edge of your seat. Big implications, but still it’s own thing. If this is how the MCU is doing films now, BRAVA.”
We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves.
Film writer Emily Murray described Thunderbolts* as “easily one of the best MCU movies in a long time,” adding it “Has so much spark, charisma, and tells a genuinely emotional story you connect with. A tear was shed. Florence Pugh in particular superb, just walks away with it.”
“Biggest compliment I can pay #Thunderbolts is that it felt like Infinity era MCU. A focus on the characters and story, rather than fan service or future set-up (until lengthy post-credit scene). Terrific cast, led by the always-excellent Florence Pugh,” said another user on X.
Hit the #Thunderbolts hashtag on X, and you will be hard-pressed to find a negative reaction. We shall see if the critics all agree when reviews drop next week.
Until then, hit the gallery for more reactions.
1. All facts here
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Source: Kevin Mazur / Getty / Megan Thee Stallion / Queen Latifah
Megan Thee Stallion is gearing up for another hot girl summer, kicking things off with her Coachella performance these past two weekends. During night one, living legend Queen Latifah was one of her many guests during her headlining set, and the two linked up offstage.
The Houston megastar delivered a phenomenal Coachella performance, which also featured appearances from Ciara and Victoria Monet, who elicited the most enthusiastic reactions from the fans.
“Thank you to everyone who came out to watch my team show out at @coachella ! Thank you to all my dancers and JaQuel 💙” wrote in the caption of her Instagram post. “yall are so amazing and are always so supportive and I appreciate yall for pushing me and motivating me ! Thank you to all my ladies @queenlatifah @courtneylaplante @ciara @victoriamonet that came out and shared the stage with me YALL ARE ICONS and made this experience so much more amazing for me thank you 1000 times !!! Love you hotties.”
The Trio We Didn’t Know We Needed
After ripping the stage together, Megan Thee Stallion joined Queen Latifah and her wife, Eboni Nichols, and they decided to enjoy some fine dining, including escargot, also known as snails.
“So me, Queen, and Eb is at dinner and b***h, and we’re about to try some sh*t we ain’t never ate before,” the “Hiss” crafter begins in the video.
Before embarking on their escargot journey, Thee Stallion boasted about her oyster seasoning skills after a friendly competition between herself and Nichols, saying they will battle for the title of “Best Oyster Maker.”
Next on the menu for Supreme Hot Girl was caviar with bread which seemed to be hit based on her joyful reaction. The final treat was steamed escargot paired with bread.
“I don’t know about this,” she said as she picked up the delicacy with her fork.
To top things off, she also got a lesson on how to eat mussels from the Queen herself, who warned her that if the shell doesn’t open by itself, don’t eat it.
The Hotties Loved To See It
The Hotties loved the candid moment between Megan Thee Stallion and Queen Latifah.
“I love this. Meg deserves to be surrounded by vets in the game who will uplift her and build solid healthy friendship/peer mentorship. A lot of the OG Women rappers like Queen, Missy, Brat, Eve and Kim have solid friendships with one another, “one post on X, formerly Twitter read.
Another post read, “A group I didn’t know I needed lol.”
Same sis, same.
You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
5. Very true
6. Not a “warm welcoming lesbian,” bruh.
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Source: MERCEDES-BENZ / Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz has once again partnered up with Ice Spice. She worked with the brand on a new custom molten chrome CLA.
As spotted on Newsweek, the automobile maker celebrated the re-grand opening of their Mercedes-Benz of Manhattan dealership in Manhattan. The evening’s theme was “Stars, Sounds & Slices,” a nod to the New York City experience. As part of their “Class of Creators” initiative, Mercedes-Benz had Ice Spice in attendance to formally kick off the collaborative project by unveiling a tricked out version of the CLA four-door sedan.
Source: MERCEDES-BENZ / Mercedes-Benz
The art piece features molten like chrome detailing and paint drips throughout the entire body. Additionally, we get an interpretation of her signature diamond “Princess” pendant on the side with the chain extending all around the car. The wheels also have Ice Spice’s name to complement chrome fixtures on the runner panel. According to a press release, the theme of this car will also be represented in a capsule collection that will include T-shirts, hooded sweatshirts, and more.
Bettina Fetzer, Vice President Mercedes-Benz Digital & Communications, expressed the brand’s enthusiasm in a statement. “The all-new CLA is the leading-edge trailblazer of our portfolio – the gateway into the world of Mercedes‑Benz. We are thrilled to collaborate with our ’Class of Creators,’ represented by Ice Spice, Gustaf Westman, KidSuper, League of Legends and Hot Wheels,” she said. “Together, we want to connect and engage with diverse communities by inviting them to be a part of this conversation.”
Gustaf Westman’s event will be next on May 22, and Kid Super will follow with his art piece on June 28. You can see Ice Spice discuss the art piece below.
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Anadolu / Delroy Lindo
Marvel Studios’ take on Blade starring Mahershala Ali has become a running joke in Hollywood, and Delroy Lindo is providing some insight on why the film can’t seem to get out of limbo.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Lindo, who is currently promoting Ryan Coogler’s epic vampire flick, Sinners, opened up about the troubled Marvel Studios project, touching on issues like creative differences that have hampered production for the film, which was announced in 2019.
Lindo was announced to be joining the Blade reboot in 2021, subsequently exiting the project, revealing to the publication that it “went off the rails.”
“When Marvel came to me, they seemed to be really interested in my input,” the Da 5 Bloods actor said. “And in the various conversations I had with producers, the writer, the director at the time, it was all leading into being very inclusive. It was really exciting conceptually, but it was also exciting in terms of the character that was going to form. And then, for whatever reason, it just went off the rails.”
Lindo revealed that his character in the Blade reboot was supposed to have a “Marcus Garvey-esque” persona.
“I’m not saying that it would’ve been an out-and-out Garvey-ite. Not that, but just in terms of how this man’s philosophy, his ethos, and what was driving him. He was a character who had, very similar to Sinners, created a community, a Black community. He was a character who was the head of this community,” Lindo added.
It sounds like we missed out on something epic.
Welp.
Ali’s Blade Movie Is Currently A Joke
Since Ali’s Blade has failed to enter the MCU, the Academy Award-winning actor has appeared in other films, as well as the forthcoming entry in the Jurassic Park film franchise, and in other movies that were announced around the same time as the reboot, which has become a constant gag.
Wesley Snipes, who successfully brought the Daywalker to the big screen in three feature-length films, and recently reprised the role in Deadpool & Wolverine, has even taken shots at Ali’s Blade movie.
Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige insists that Ali is still very much involved with the Blade project and that it’s coming. We will continue to put faith in the man that is finally giving us the X-Men we have wanted to see for years, and delivered some of the greatest comic book movies of all-time.
He deserves that much grace.
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Source: Scott Dudelson / Getty
Lil Uzi Vert was rushed to a local hospital in New York City on Monday, April 21. The Philadelphia rapper was seen getting loaded into a waiting ambulance.
TMZ reports that paramedics were summoned to a hotel on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in response to a “sick person.”
The 29-year-old, born Symere Bysil Woods, was wheeled on a stretcher through the hotel lobby and placed into a waiting ambulance. Reportedly, they were accompanied by their girlfriend, City Girls rapper JT. Security did their best to shield them from cameras.
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Source: Scott Dudelson / Getty
Lil Uzi Vert was rushed to a local hospital in New York City on Monday, April 21. The Philadelphia rapper was seen getting loaded into a waiting ambulance.
TMZ reports that paramedics were summoned to a hotel on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in response to a “sick person.”
The 29-year-old, born Symere Bysil Woods, was wheeled on a stretcher through the hotel lobby and placed into a waiting ambulance. Reportedly, they were accompanied by their girlfriend, City Girls rapper JT. Security did their best to shield them from cameras.
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Source: Getty Images / Ben Stiller / Sinners
Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan’s Sinners is without a doubt a hit, but based on a post from Variety, you would think otherwise, and Ben Stiller and everyone else on X see the jig.
Coogler’s 1930’s vampire flick that stars Jordan as two twins, Smoke and Stack, that return home to open up a juke joint, only to encounter a pack of blood sucking gouls took a significant bite out of the box office during its opening weekend, earning an impressive $61 million and dethroning A Minecraft Movie.
Variety, the well-established publication that reports on all things Hollywood, dropped a shady post on X, speaking about the film’s success, while also pointing out itit’still short of breaking even and returning a profit for the studio.
The tweet (yes, we still call them that) is hilariously still up and it reads:
“Sinners” has amassed $61 million in its global debut. It’s great result for an original, R-rated horror film, yet the Warner Bros. release has a $90 million price tag before global marketing expenses, so profitability remains a ways away.”
Ben Stiller Was Not Feeling Variety’s Shade Towards Sinners
The post, which was also slapped with a well-timed community note calling Variety’s headline misleading, sparked plenty of outrage, with some of Hollywood’s biggest names like Ben Stiller coming to the defense of the hit film.
In a quote reply, Stiller wrote, “In what universe does a 60 million dollar opening for an original studio movie warrant this headline?”
Patrick Schwarzenegger (The White Lotus) also chimed in on the matter, reminding folks that “It’s opening weekend…”
“I wonder if @variety covered Once Upon A Time in Hollywood – which made 10% less at the domestic box office on 10% more theaters prepandemic and at the same budget with a similar deal structure – in the same way,” Franklin Leonard, a film producer and creator of The Black List said on X.
The rest of the world who have been praising the film after seeing it in theaters have also been sounding off on Variety. You can see those reactions in the gallery below.
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Source: Tom Williams / Getty / Pete Hegseth
Pete Hegseth continues to drop top-secret information in Signal chats.
Trump’s DEI hire for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, is embroiled in another scandal after details surfaced on Sunday of another Signal chat where he once again shared confidential attack plans.
A second unreported Signal chat is floating over Hegseth’s head where he shared more sensitive information about attacks on Houthi rebels, but this time he shared those details with his wife and brother, according to news reports.
Per The New York Times:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, according to four people with knowledge of the chat.
Some of those people said that the information Mr. Hegseth shared on the Signal chat included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen — essentially the same attack plans that he shared on a separate Signal chat the same day that mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic.
Mr. Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, is not a Defense Department employee, but she has traveled with him overseas and drawn criticism for accompanying her husband to sensitive meetings with foreign leaders.
Mr. Hegseth’s brother Phil and Tim Parlatore, who continues to serve as his personal lawyer, both have jobs in the Pentagon, but it is not clear why either would need to know about upcoming military strikes aimed at the Houthis in Yemen.
To make matters worse for Hegseth, unlike the last Signal chat, this one was created by him. Of course, this administration never takes responsibility or accountability for anything, and that behavior starts at the top.
Hegseth’s boss, Donald Trump, who will never admit that his administration is a sloppy mess, is standing by the Secretary of Defense, with the White House claiming that no sensitive information was shared, the same response they had the last time.
Social Media Is Clowning Pete Hegseth
Whiskey Leaks, aka Pete Hegseth, has been getting lit up on social media.
Senator Cory Booker wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “Pete Hegseth is clearly ill-equipped to handle the role of Secretary of Defense. His repeated failure to follow basic operational security procedures jeopardizes the safety and security of our armed forces. He should resign. It is time for my Republican colleagues to do their constitutional duty and scrutinize his and the administration’s actions in oversight hearings.”
Another post read, “When Pete Hegseth sobers up he’ll be surprised to learn he was defense secretary.”
Damn.
You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
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Source: Liane Hentscher/HBO / The Last of Us / Pedro Pascal
Gamers have already experienced this controversial moment in video game history. Still, watching it unfold in HBO’s hit television adaptation of the iconic video game, The Last of Us, has hit even harder, leaving fans stunned.
Like watching the Titanic barrel towards a massive iceberg, fans of The Last of Us video game knew this day was coming and eagerly anticipated seeing how casual viewers would handle this moment that sparked plenty of discourse in the video game world when The Last of Us Part II was released in 2020.
*Spoilers Ahead*
Okay, if you moved past the spoiler warning, you no longer care about what is about to be said.
How Joel’s Time Came To An End In The Last of Us Season 2
At the end of season 1, we saw Pedro Pascal’s Joel slaughter a bunch of members of the Fireflies and including doctors who were about perform a fatal surgery on Ellie (Bella Ramsey) in hopes of turning her immunity to the fungal plague into a cure to end the Cordyceps brain infection that ravaged the entire globe, basically bringing civilization to a crashing halt.
Joel’s decision to save his surrogate daughter comes back to haunt him in season 2 with the introduction of Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), who just happens to be the daughter of the head surgeon he killed in season 1, and yes, she wants revenge, and she gets it brutally.
After Joel saves her from a horde of infected, she quickly realizes he is the man she has been searching for. She shoots in the knee with a shotgun before brutally beating Joel with a golf club, delivering the fatal blow in front of Ellie for a gutwrenching scene as she screams for surrogate dad to get up, before dragging herself over to his lifeless body.
We knew it was coming, but man, it still hit like a ton of bricks.
Showrunners Craig Mazin & Neil Druckmann Didn’t Want To Torment Fans
The Last of Us television show is a rare gem, as it has rich source material to draw from in the game; for the most part, it perfectly mirrors the game with some slight changes made to the story.
Like in this season, Abby is not muscular like she is in the game, much to the chagrin of some purists, but Dever still plays the role with the same anger, and Joel’s death in the show was more brutal than it was in the game, and this was done on purpose.
In an interview with Variety, showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann explained why they wasted no time when handling Joel’s death in the show.
They admitted they had thought of every possible scenario. Still, Druckmann explained from a storytelling perspective that Joel’s death happening early made sense “because this is the inciting incident for this story.”
Mazin and Druckmann also wanted to address the elephant in the room, Joel’s death, because it has been looming over the show since season 1, and they felt they had an obligation to spare fans from any more torment.
“There’s a danger of tormenting people,” Mazin told Variety. “It’s not what we want to do. If people know it’s coming, they will start to feel tormented. And people who don’t know it’s coming are going to find out it’s coming because people are going to talk about the fact that it hasn’t shown up yet.
“Our instinct was to make sure that when we did it, that it felt natural in the story and was not some meta-function of us wanting to upset people.”
Social Media Reactions To The Last of Season 2’s Heartbreaking Moment
As expected, the reactions to Joel’s gruesome death were those of shock, and mostly people who knew it was coming were still left reeling after watching Pedro Pascal take a golf club and plenty of punches to the face.
We’re not sure if those people who were tuning in to watch Pedro Pascal will stick around, but if this one post on X, formerly Twitter, is an indicator, HBO and The Last of Us might be in trouble.
But we don’t think last night’s episode will be the last time we see Pascal’s Joel. Remember, we got a whole five years of time we need to catch up on.
Damn Joel, we hate it had to be you.
You can see more reactons to the episode in the gallery below.
1. If you hate her, that means she’s doing a phenomenal job