Photo by: Will Heath/NBC(NEW YORK) — It was a hilarious tale of two competing town halls as Saturday Night Live‘s cold open took aim at Thursday’s drastically different events featuring Joe Biden and President Donald Trump.
The two events were a topic of discussion even before the two contenders took their respective stages, with NBC facing a backlash for scheduling its town hall with President Trump opposite Biden’s previously planned town hall, moderated by George Stephanopoulos — played by Mikey Day.
Kate McKinnon, playing Today anchor and “surprise bad**s” Savannah Guthrie, who moderated the NBC event, declaring, “If you are angry at NBC for doing this town hall, just let me get a few questions in, and I think you will thank me.”
The bit poked fun at the candidates’ contrasting styles: a long-winded Biden — played once again by Jim Carrey — singing “Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” the theme from Fred Rogers’ long-running PBS kids show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and even donning a sweater, as Rogers was famous for doing.
Alec Baldwin’s Trump, meanwhile, repeatedly mispronouncing Guthries name, while hurling a barrage of accusations aimed at Biden and former president Barack Obama.
Recalling a viral moment from Trump’s town hall, McKinnon’s Guthrie chastises Baldwin’s Trump over his penchant for re-tweeting conspiracy theories, saying, “You can’t just do things like that. You are not just someone’s crazy uncle.”
Baldwin responds with “Right now is a preview of Thanksgiving dinner, and a lot of American households have crazy uncles. Stand back and stand by.”
Maya Rudolph also made an appearance as Senator Kamala Harris.
Saturday’s show was hosted by Issa Rae with musical guest Justin Bieber.
Broken BowThe cover of Runaway June‘s new holiday EP, When I Think About Christmas, gives the impression Jennifer Wayne, Naomi Cooke, and Natalie Stovall are standing in a snowy, tree-lined scene.
But that’s actually far from the truth.
“Nothing like being in fur coats in a hundred degrees in a field in Tennessee,” Natalie laughs.
“It was fun though. Yeah, I mean it was hot!” Naomi agrees.
The “We Were Rich” hitmakers set out to forego traditional silver, gold, and green trappings, in favor of a more rustic look.
“We really wanted the visual side of the music to feel and look and capture the sound,” Naomi explains. “You know, there’s a lot of like Appalachian kind of mountain sounds in this music. There’s fiddle and banjo.”
“And we just wanted something a little different,” she continues. “Normally, like Christmas album covers have got a lot of red and it’s very glam.”
Though you could certainly argue the three women still look plenty glamorous, at one point, they worried they might be going a little too far with their “blue steel” and furs.
“We just really wanted to step outside of that box a little bit and bring more wintery elements,” Naomi reflects. “But it was funny because we had to kind of fight with that a little bit, because we were like, ‘Maybe this looks a little too a Game of Thrones.'”
“And then we were like making jokes about ‘Winter is coming,'” she adds, as the three laugh. “And we’re like, ‘Oh, okay, this is really fun. Let’s just do this.'”
(FORT COLLINS, Colorado) — Hundreds of thousands of acres in Colorado continue to go up in flames as firefighters fight several wildfires throughout the state, including one that has been burning for over two months.
The Cameron Peak Fire, which began on Aug. 13, is the largest recorded wildfire in Colorado’s history, according to the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center. The fire, located west of Fort Collins, burned 203,253 acres and was 62% contained as of Sunday afternoon, according to fire officials and the U.S. Forest Service.
About 1,542 firefighters were battling the blaze in different sections, the U.S. Forest Service said in a news release.
“In anticipation of the fire advancing, crews and heavy equipment built contingency lines and focused on structure protection,” the agency said in a statement.
Officials said improving weather conditions have helped firefighters — on Saturday evening, wind speeds were reduced and the humidity shifted to a safer level for the firefighters, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
“Fire managers will take advantage of this weather change to utilize aircraft and employ aggressive fire suppression actions,” the agency said in a statement.
A chance of snow Sunday night is expected to bring relief but higher wind gusts are also in the forecast, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
In the meantime, the state is dealing with other smaller fires that are burning in different areas.
The Calwood Fire, located just north of Boulder, erupted Saturday and has burned 8,788, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Firefighters have not contained any part of the blaze as of Sunday afternoon, the agency said.
The East Troublesome Fire, which is located just north of route 40, burned 11,562 acres and was 5% contained as of Sunday afternoon, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
Colorado’s fires are part a surge in dangerous wildfires that have spread throughout the West Coast and Rocky Mountain region since the summer.
Scientists and meteorologists say climate change has been the leading factor behind the rise in fires, as rising temperatures, drier air and strong wind gusts have fueled and strengthened the fires.
Last week, there were at least four dozen large uncontained wildfires burning in western states, forcing evacuations in several towns in California and Colorado.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported that wildfires in California this year have burned through more than 4.1 million acres, damaged over 5,400 structures and killed eight people.
ABC News’ Matt Fuhrman and Daniel Peck contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) – LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers made history as they clinched the 2020 NBA Championship in a Finals series victory against the Miami Heat. It was the seventeenth time the Lakers franchise won an NBA title—tied for the most in league history. In the WNBA, the Seattle Storm did the same thing, clinching their fourth championship—also tied for the most in WNBA history.
Returning to action after the coronavirus pandemic shut down play, NBA and WNBA players spoke out against social injustices and advocated for change. They wore names of African-Americans killed in police shootings on their gear and jerseys, as well as other phrases such as “Say Her Name” and “Respect Us.” Player protests even led teams to postpone games in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
Not limited to just basketball, athletes across professional sports took stands: they kneeled during the playing of the National Anthem and spoke out during press conferences. Many even received unprecedented support from league leadership as well.
Author and ESPN senior writer Howard Bryant spoke with ABC News’ “Perspective” podcast this week. He says the outspokenness of professional athletes marks the beginning of a new era and the end of an old one:
“Depending on what generation you are from, you remember when sports didn’t have all the flags and the flyovers and the cops singing the national anthem and the surprise homecomings and the military tributes and all of those different things. From 9/11 to about 2012, you really did have nothing but patriotism on the field. After Trayvon Martin was killed, you saw the Miami Heat wearing their hoodies. Then, you had Ferguson and then, obviously, Kaepernick takes a knee in 2016. So, you’re starting to see this collision. On the one hand, you see the patriotism being sold to fans by the leagues. Now, you’re seeing the protests being demonstrated by the players on the field.”
Bryant is the author of several books, including his latest “Full Dissidence: Notes From An Uneven Playing Field,” and recently published an article for ESPN titled, “Police, Protest, Pandemic and the End of the 9/11 Era,” in which he discusses colliding forces in sports today. “We’ll see if the 9/11 era is over. To me, it’s over, but we’ll see when the fans come back what the sports leagues do. Are they willing to simply embrace the polarization? And are they going to say, yes, it’s possible for us now to sell sports to one part of our paying customers. We’re going to sell them with police and then we’re going to have Law Enforcement Appreciation nights, and we’re going to do that while we have Black Lives Matter painted on the basketball court. Can these two images, which are in direct conflict with each other… both coexist?”
Now, according to Bryant, athletes are transitioning into a new era that raises new questions for leagues and their players:
“The question for me is going to be, how do the leagues respond to this assault that we see right now of people saying, well, the NBA ratings are down because of black activism. What do they do with that?”
The weeks and months ahead, Bryant says, could prove to be a critical test of players’ risk tolerance:
“I think that the players risking some of their salary when they walked out and risking the anger of the public is important because now they’re actually willing to risk something that belongs to them, which is their money. At the same time, they are in a very good position to risk some of this because they make so much money. Tommie Smith was a busboy. He was a security guard. He lost everything.”
Bryant also notes that wherever activism goes in sports will not necessarily be dictated by the athletes:
“America is obsessed with celebrity. It’s obsessed with money. It’s obsessed with visibility… it’s the star culture. But it’s really not what’s happened. It’s been completely ahistorical to suggest the players started this because they didn’t. Why were the players out there after Ferguson? Because the people were already on the street. The WNBA has been out there and has done a better job. They’ve shown more leadership than the men have. All of this movement has followed what people are doing. We constantly follow the athletes, so we think they’re the leaders when they are actually following the public.”
2020 in professional sports, especially in the NBA and WNBA, has very much been defined by athlete activism. Whatever institutional change comes as a result of their activism could dictate how athletes continue using their voices going forward:
“We’ll see if the laws change. We’ll see if the jury’s change. We’ll see if the conviction rates change. If that stuff doesn’t change, then we’re going to be asking ourselves what this was all about.”
(MESA, Az.) — Seven people, including four children, were injured in an apparent drive-by shooting Friday night in Mesa, Arizona, authorities said.
The incident occurred around 9:30 p.m. local time in a parking lot where a crowd was gathered, police said. A vehicle drove by and opened fire on families visiting food vendors, police said.
The victims included three adults and four children ages 1, 6, 9 and 16, Mesa Police Department Chief Ken Cost said Saturday afternoon during a press briefing. The children were from multiple families.
The 1-year-old was hospitalized in “extremely critical” condition, Cost said, while the other victims had non-life-threatening injuries that ranged from minor to severe.
“This is devastating, this is a sad day,” Cost said.
The shooting occurred after occupants of a white SUV stopped in the middle of the road and opened fire toward the food area, where several families were eating, Cost said.
One of the food vendors returned fire at the vehicle, and it is not known at this time if it was struck, police said.
No suspects have been located or detained, police said.
Investigators have not found any link between the perpetrators and the victims, Cost said. They are also working to determine if an incident in the same parking lot several hours earlier that day, during which a food vendor intervened while a man was allegedly assaulting a woman, is connected to the shooting, the chief said.
“This type of senseless, evil violence will not be tolerated in our city or anywhere else,” Cost said, urging people to come forward with any information.
Officers and investigators were processing the scene on Saturday and speaking to witnesses. Footage of the scene captured by Phoenix ABC affiliate KNXV showed tents from the event still set up in the parking lot.
“We’re in the early stages of trying to find out who did this, and what motive there might have been for this incident,” Mesa Police Department spokesperson Detective Nik Rasheta said Friday night during a press briefing at the scene.
Photo by: Will Heath/NBC(NEW YORK) — It was a hilarious tale of two competing town halls as Saturday Night Live‘s cold open took aim at Thursday’s drastically different events featuring Joe Biden and President Donald Trump.
