Latest news with #O.G.
UPI
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- UPI
Orlando Magic unveil new logos, uniforms, court for rebranding
The Orlando Magic unveiled three new uniforms on Tuesday. Photo by the Orlando Magic June 3 (UPI) -- Orlando Magic players will wear three new uniforms and play on a new court as part of a franchise rebranding, which also includes new logos, the franchise announced Tuesday. "Don't call it a comeback, this is a new era of Magic basketball," the Magic said. "An ode to the O.G., our iconic star and pinstripes representing the true pride of Orlando. "The identity for the next generation of Magic fans that pays homage to the legends that engraved our name into the history books forever: A modern classic making its world premiere." The Magic showed off their rebranding Tuesday at Kia Center. They are to host an event there for fans at 3 p.m. EDT Tuesday. The new uniforms are called Association (white), Icon (blue) and Statement (black). The Association and Icon editions feature pinstripes and a bold star on the shorts. The Statement edition is the only Jordan brand uniform. "The Orlando Magic's mission is to be world champions on and off the court," Magic executive vice president of marketing and social responsibility Shelly Wilkes said in a news release. "The logo and uniforms are an extension of that mission and a direct reflection of the excellence our organization strives for from our ownership to our staff, coaches and players. "Based on fan feedback, the new logo was a collaboration and really a labor of love keeping in mind the affinity our fans have for our brand identity. This logo and new uniforms signify the beginning of a new era of excellence for the Magic while paying homage to the past. We are excited to build upon our rich history with a modernized version of the uniform and logo that our fan base cherishes." Magic players, including star forward Paolo Banchero, participated in photo shoots and were involved in a locker room reveal of the new uniforms. Banchero scored a team-leading 25.9 points per game this season to help the Magic finish 41-41 in the regular season, earning a playoff berth for the second-consecutive year.
New York Post
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Kendrick Lamar and SZA, pop's hottest pair, double up at MetLife Stadium on co-headlining tour: concert review
It's hard to come in on more of a roll than Kendrick Lamar and SZA did when they brought their Grand National Tour to MetLIfe Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on Thursday night. After all, their slow-jam joint 'Luther' has spent 11 weeks and counting at No. 1, becoming the longest-running chart-topper for both artists. Both are also touring behind hot albums — his 'GNX' and her 'Lana' reissue of 'SOS' — that were released late last year. Advertisement 6 Kendrick Lamar and SZA intersperse their solo material and collaborations during their Grand National Tour. Cassidy Meyers And of course, Lamar —fresh off of winning the Record and Song of the Year Grammys for his epic Drake diss track 'Not Like Us' — headlined the Super Bowl, with SZA appearing as his special guest. You might have expected that Lamar would headline again on this tour, with the 'Kill Bill' singer essentially serving as a opening act for the Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper. But this was a true co-headlining show in which the two performers alternated in separate acts, while also teaming up for some of their most notable collaborations, in a seamless flow of power-flexing. Advertisement But as much as neither of them hardly needs to sit down and be humble, there were no egos. Just two stars sharing the spotlight, shining bright in the night. Lamar hit the stage first to the 'GNX' opener 'Wacced Out Murals' and quickly turned things up with 'Squabble Up' and the 'To Pimp a Butterfly' banger 'King Kunta,' which was G-funkier than ever. It was good to hear K-Dot dig into his earlier catalog with tracks that feel like classics now, which were missed during his Super Bowl set. 6 Kendrick Lamar showcased tracks from his latest album 'GNX' on the Grand National Tour. Greg Noire Advertisement In fact, some of Lamar's best moments came from his 2012 breakthrough 'Good Kid, M.A.A.D City.' 'Backseat Freestyle' got the stadium rocking old-school style, and 'M.A.A.D City' was smoothed out with the quiet-storm soul of Anita Baker's 'Sweet Love.' And the sequence of 'Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe,' 'Money Trees' and 'Poetic Justice' — minus Drake's verse, of course—was a gangsta throwback for the O.G.'s. Then there was 'Alright,' Lamar's Black Loves Matter anthem that had the crowd raising their fists in the air, regardless of their race. It was powerful to witness on a stadium magnitude. Concertgoers might think it would be hard for SZA to keep up with Lamar. She doesn't have one 'Alright' or 'Not Like Us' in her catalog. But the Jersey girl more than held her own in her home state. 6 SZA performed songs from the 'Lana' reissue of her 'SOS' album on the Grand National Tour. Cassidy Meyers Advertisement Since the last time these two hit the road together — as Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates on 2018's The Championship Tour — SZA has come a long way as a live performer. She leveled up to new heights on her 'SOS' Tour in 2023. Her singing — which has never sounded better than on Thursday night — and dancing have developed into a cool, confident style that is all her own. She's a vibe. And the creative-direction upgrade from the 'SOS' Tour carried over here. Like Lamar — who has learned to use dancers and visuals to bigger stage effect without losing the core essence of who he is — SZA has figured out how to be SZA on a grander scale. 6 Kendrick Lamar performed hits such as 'Alright,' 'Humble' and 'Not Like Us' on the Grand National Tour. Cassidy Meyers 6 Kendrick Lamar and SZA return to MetLife Stadium on Friday night for a second show on the Grand National Tour. kendricklamar/Instagram From 'Ctrl' faves 'Love Galore,' 'The Weekend' and 'Broken Clocks' — but no 'Drew Barrymore' — to 'SOS' hits 'I Hate U,' 'Kill Bill' and 'Snooze,' she was in complete control. So much so that she sold the less familiar 'Lana' tracks at the expense of 'Saturn.' And, while surely no shade to Lamar, she even did her 2023 Drake collab 'Rich Baby Daddy.' Of course, 'Not Like Us' was the moment everyone was waiting for — and it did not disappoint with dancers stepping in solidarity and colorful collages celebrating black culture. Lamar let the crowd do the rapping on the controversial 'certified pedophile' lyric and the 'A minor' line, and the whole stadium chanted the 'they not like us' mantra in the chorus. Advertisement 6 SZA was Kendrick Lamar's special guest when the rapper headlined the Super Bowl halftime show in February. Getty Images But on this tour — which returns to MetLife Stadium on Friday night — some of the best, most special moments were when Lamar and SZA were together. After their first duet on '30 for 30' to introduce SZA, there was an act with the two of them — including 'Doves in the Wind,' 'All the Stars' and 'Love' — that showed just why they are the Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, the Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway, the Rick James and Teena Marie of their generation. 'All the Stars,' in particular, lit up the night with cell-phone flashlights as SZA and Lamar were elevated to the skies on their respective platforms during their 'Black Panther' bop. With their combined star power on dazzling display, it was all the feels. And by the end, when the late R&B legend Luther Vandross crooned 'If This World Were Mine' on the 'Luther' encore, it felt as if the world was theirs.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's DC prosecutor now seems doomed — and it couldn't happen to a nicer fellow
I've been feeling a bit sorry for the good old-fashioned conservative movement of yore lately. You remember those people who fought for Ronald Reagan's "three legged stool" of Republican ideology: small government, strong national defense and "traditional values," right? I'm thinking about folks like Richard Viguerie, Morton Blackwell and Phyllis Schlafly, the movement O.G.'s who slaved for years in the trenches training Republicans to embrace such arcane subjects as "free trade," "individual liberty" and "limited government" — only to have a billionaire demagogue throw that all out the window for libertinism, central planning and vendetta by police state. But there's really no need to feel sad for them. Blackwell and Viguerie are still around and now peddling Trumpism, as did Schlafly before she died in 2016. And we know that later Reagan revolutionaries like Ralph Reed and Roger Stone have been all-in on Donald Trump from the beginning. Still, they deserve more credit than they're getting for the ghastly state of American conservatism and the toxic politics we are living in today. Without them there would be no Trump. Trump's 2016 presidential campaign was a ramshackle affair with only a few advisers. Stone had been friends with him for years and had advised Trump on his aborted Reform Party campaign back in 2000. He was Trump's window into the right-wing movement that he was going to need to leverage if he wanted to win. Since Trump was more a CNN guy than a Fox News guy in those days, he needed some schooling. Stone did that for him, along with a fellow named Sam Nunberg who provided Trump with right-wing radio talking points in the early days. He quickly picked up important jargon that signaled his membership in the looney-tunes tribe. (Remember his blathering about military deserter Bowe Bergdahl and "common core" during that campaign? Those obscure topics came right out of right-wing talk radio.) There was a considerable battle during that campaign between more traditional conservative movement types who wanted someone like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and grassroots voters dazzled by Trump's star power. Ultimately, the trad-cons couldn't compete. While a few of them peeled off into Never-Trump land, for the most part the whole movement morphed into MAGA without a second thought. Those operatives who had previously followed the tutelage of O.G. conservatives flipped immediately, and put their training to work for the blustery, billionaire demagogue whose only ideology was about what was good for him. A case in point is the current acting U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Ed Martin. He had spent his adult life trying to succeed in conservative politics, working with right-to-life groups and other activists, as well as repeatedly running for office and failing. He got his law degree at Saint Louis University, a Jesuit school that has acknowledged the names and stories of enslaved Black Americans who built the university. Such DEI-style actions can only be an embarrassment to a MAGA true believer like Martin. Martin got his first break in politics after being hired as chief of staff to Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt in 2006, but was almost immediately enmeshed in an email scandal and was forced to resign after revelations that he'd lied about doing political work on the government's dime. That scandal ended Blunt's career, but Martin kept going. After several failed attempts at elective office, Martin became the head of the Missouri Republican Party in 2013 and shortly after that got involved with Schlafly's Eagle Forum. Schlafly was elderly and in failing health; her daughter and other members of the board accused Martin of coercing her into endorsing Trump and co-authoring a volume called "The Conservative Case for Trump" which, by ironic coincidence, was published one day day after Schlafly's death. Martin was ejected from Eagle Forum but started a rival organization he called "Phyllis Schlafly's Eagles." Yeah, we're talking about a class act here. From the moment of Trump's first victory, Martin has been a true-blue MAGA follower, appearing on any radio or TV show that will have him. He famously emerged as one of the most vociferous defenders of the Jan. 6 insurrection and its perpetrators, and finally got his reward by being named as acting U.S. attorney in D.C. and nominated for the permanent position, although he has no previous experience as a prosecutor or a judge. Martin's brief tenure has given him a reputation as the worst Trump appointment of 2025 — and that's really saying something. He has fired or demoted prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases and dropped one prosecution for which he was still the government's attorney of record. Since he was a participant in the U.S. Capitol festivities that day, and tweeted through it as if it were Mardi Gras, I guess that was the least he could do. He has threatened several elected Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, over issuing alleged threats and has sucked up to Elon Musk with sycophantic public letters promising to protect him from his enemies. He now claims he "forgot" to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee that he has appeared on Russian state media more than 150 times. His defamatory claims against former Biden officials are just par for the course: Martin has also taken it upon himself to intimidate Georgetown University, saying he won't hire any of the school's law graduates because of its DEI program, which garnered a strong "mind your own business" retort from the dean. He's even been sending weird threats to Wikipedia and medical journals, demanding that they drop their alleged liberal bias. Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course. The attacks on medical journals may provide some context for an odd Truth Social post Trump sent out the other night, touting his lap-dog prosecutor's supposed commitment to making America — wait for it — healthy again. It seems that Martin is in cahoots with one of the other most-terrible Trump appointees, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. On Tuesday, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., announced he would not vote for Martin's confirmation in the Judiciary Committee, citing his participation in the Jan. 6 riot. (Pretty gutsy, since we know that's a major trigger for Trump.) If Tillis stands firm, Martin's nomination won't make it to the floor. His 120-day interim appointment ends on May 20, so if Trump doesn't name someone else, the 24 judges of the D.C. District Court can name another interim choice until someone is confirmed or the president makes another interim appointment himself. So Ed Martin's brief and bizarre tenure in the spotlight may be coming to a close soon, but the old-school conservative movement should get credit for all the other operatives, saboteurs and radical henchmen they trained over the last few decades who now carrying out Trump's sweeping vision to turn America into a Christian nationalist autocracy and global pariah. Maybe that's what they really wanted all along.
USA Today
12-04-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Kate Spade's whimsical designs just dropped at Target for under $50 🌼
Kate Spade's whimsical designs just dropped at Target for under $50 🌼 The limited-time collaboration features hundreds of Kate Spade x Target products, including a colorblock tote bag, floral cardigan and polka dot pillow. Some retail collaborations are so unmissable, you find yourself setting an extra alarm(s) just to make sure you can shop products the moment they drop. In my world, the Kate Spade x Target collection is one of many such collaborations, and after weeks of anticipation (and feverishly bookmarking my most-wanted buys), it's finally live. For its latest designer collaboration, Target teamed up with Kate Spade New York for a timeless lifestyle collection that's designed to spark joy and give shoppers a more accessible way into Kate Spade's decadent world. The limited-edition capsule features more than 300 items across three core categories, including women's clothing and accessories, home decor and entertaining essentials. From Kate Spade purses and wallets to floral dresses and cheeky polka dot pillows, the collection bottles up the colorful whimsy of the O.G. heritage brand and reimagines it into the most darling and affordable collab—with prices starting at $5. Ahead, shop the best Kate Spade x Target products from their newest collection and infuse some more color into your spring aesthetic. Shop the Kate Spade x Target collection 📲 More: We found a Kate Spade Disney bag for $214 off! Plus 10 other purse deals to shop this week More: What's the difference between Target Circle and Target Circle 360? More: Sip in style this summer: Get exclusive new Stanley Quencher colors at Target Shop the Kate Spade x Target collection What is the Kate Spade x Target collection? Every year, Target announces a series of designer collaborations that are exclusive to the retailer and available to shop in stores or online. For 2025, Target teamed up with Kate Spade New York for a limited-edition collection that marks the retailer's largest designer collaboration to date—with over 300 pieces—and features a wide product assortment, with everything from Kate Spade handbags and accessories to hosting essentials like plate sets and tapered candles. The Kate Spade x Target collection officially launched on Saturday, April 12, and is available only for a limited time—or before products sell out.
