JoJo‘s Instagram bio reads, “!!!!!!!!!,” and that’s exactly how her fans are feeling right now. The singer is celebrating her 28th birthday today (December 20), but she’s the one giving us the best present ever: new music. Or, more accurately, old music made brand new again.
On Thursday afternoon, JoJo began flooding her social media accounts with rerecorded snippets of her beloved throwback hits. Among the batch are fan-favorite tracks from her 2004 debut album, JoJo (“Baby It’s You,” “Homeboy,” “Weak,” “Never Say Goodbye,” and, of course, “Leave (Get Out)”), as well as 2006’s The High Road (“Let It Rain,” “Like That,” “A Little Too Late,” and the title track).
To hear a taste of what she’s whipped up, check out these killer snippets from “Leave” and “A Little Too Late,” featuring her grown-up vocals:
JoJo’s creative birthday gift is a welcome treat for fans, but it’s also a way for her to prove she’s triumphing against her nagging label issues. Her first album is not available on streaming services because of her former label, Blackground Records, which kept the singer locked in a seven-year contractual bind. In 2016, she vented in a Facebook post, “To say I’m sad and frustrated that this album is no longer available on iTunes and Spotify because of my previous label is a massive freaking understatement. That was such an important time in my life and set the foundation for the career I’m building brick my brick.”
Over the past few years, JoJo managed to release a few mixtapes and EPs, and eventually dropped her third album, Mad Love, via Atlantic Records in 2016. Just as she used those projects to work around Blackground’s road blocks, she’s doing the same thing by rerecording JoJo and The High Road. And our nostalgia-loving hearts are forever grateful.
Patriots wide receiver Josh Gordon, in many ways, is in a fight for his life.
This is not an overstatement. Any player who has failed at least three drug tests and battles constant mental health issues (like millions of Americans) is in a hardened battle. That needs to be acknowledged and respected.
His announcement on Thursday that he is stepping away from football again to attend to his mental health, combined with the fact he allegedly violated the terms of his reinstatement, according to the NFL Network, under the substance abuse policy, is far from a surprise. But if you have a beating heart, it is also sad.
League sources tell me they believe Gordon will likely be suspended for at least a year. They also don’t think he will ever play in the NFL again.
“He has burned every possible bridge,” one league source told me.
The human part of this story—the most important part—is undeniably a tough one to assess and a much tougher one for Gordon to deal with as his career and life move forward. The football side only comes later, but, unimportant as it may be when it comes to a person’s well-being, it does come.
As the picture of the Patriots’ season moves forward without Gordon, though, it’s clear that, maybe for the first time during this staggeringly impressive dynastic run, New England enters the postseason as a floundering team. This is one of the few times they aren’t a dire threat to the rest of the league.
Read those words again, because they rarely have been written before. The Tom Brady-Bill Belichick Patriots have been to eight Super Bowls and won five. They’ve only missed the playoffs twice in 18 seasons together. Never have they entered a postseason this injured, slow or unintimidating.
It must be said that the Patriots have been counted out before, and it’s always dangerous to underestimate them. Belichick is the best coach of all time, and Brady the best quarterback. Not showing them respect or deference would be foolish.
Yet these Pats face obstacles they have not faced before, and that goes beyond losing Gordon.
For one, age is starting to catch the Patriots in ways opponents never could. Brady is 41 and Belichick is 66. They are obviously remarkable talents, and there are trillions of men have Brady’s age who want to be him.
The problem is the rest of the AFC has gotten younger, hungrier and more talented, and New England will face many of those up-and-coming teams in the playoffs. There’s Kansas City‘s Patrick Mahomes, a number of young receiving stars in Pittsburgh, Deshaun Watson, DeAndre Hopkins, J.J. Watt and Jadeveon Clowney in Houston. Colts quarterback Andrew Luck is healthy again. The Chargers have seven Pro Bowlers this year.
After years of facing few true threats to the rule over the AFC, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick face a conference filled with young stars and big ambitions.Jim Rogash/Getty Images
Throughout the length of their dynasty, the Patriots usually have been forced to duel with a limited but known set of foes in the Peyton Manning Colts, the Steelers and sometimes the Ravens. Now, they are surrounded by a number of great talents on many different teams.
It’s one reason why the Patriots took the risk of trading for Gordon in the first place. He was going to add explosiveness to the offense (in the regular season and the playoffs) the way Tyreek Hill did in Kansas City.
Beyond the Pats’ graying hair, there’s a case to be made that they simply aren’t that good.
Tight end Rob Gronkowski is a shell of himself, receiver Julian Edelman has been solid but not great, and the defense ranks a pretty un-scary 23rd overall.
Given their pedigree, New England could always transform into something better. After all, this is what they do. They shift and adapt. They surprise. They shock. You don’t win five Super Bowls not doing these things.
Their final two games are against Buffalo and the Jets, so there’s a good chance they win those two and finish 11-5. And is it really fair to say an 11-5 team is struggling?
Yet the looming Gordon suspension, the drop-off in play from the team’s stars and the playoff fight that lies ahead scream that this isn’t the well-oiled machine to which we’ve grown accustomed.
These aren’t the dominant Patriots. These are the Patriots near the end of a dynasty.
Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter:@mikefreemanNFL.
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general who was known as a stabilising force in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, will leave his job at the end of February, Trump said in a tweet on Thursday.
The departure of Mattis had been anticipated since Trump announced on Wednesday that he was withdrawing US troops from Syria despite opposition from US allies and Trump’s own top military officials.
In his tweet, Trump thanked Mattis for his service, and said a new defence chief will be named shortly.
In his resignation letter, Mattis said Trump deserves a defence secretary “whose views are better aligned” with his.
According to ESPN’s Ian Begley, the Knicks are one of multiple teams that are interested in Parker, but a deal isn’t close for New York to acquire him.
The 23-year-old Parker is a Chicago native who signed a one-year, $20 million deal with a club option for 2019-20 with the Bulls during the offseason.
Parker was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2014 NBA draft out of Duke, but he has struggled to reach his potential due primarily to injuries and defensive deficiencies.
In 29 games this season (17 starts), Parker is averaging 15.2 points, 6.9 rebounds and 2.3 assists, while shooting 45.5 percent from the field and 29.3 percent from beyond the arc.
Parker is second on the team in scoring and first in rebounding among players who have appeared in at least 10 games.
Since the return of second-year power forward Lauri Markkanen from injury, Parker has fallen out of head coach Jim Boylen’s rotation despite his solid numbers.
Parker has played a total of just four minutes over the past four games due to the combination of an illness and a lack of playing time.
The BullsannouncedThursday that power forward Bobby Portis will miss two to four weeks with a sprained ankle, meaning Parker could once again become the primary frontcourt backup to Markkanen and Wendell Carter Jr. if Chicago decides to keep him.
New York is short on forward depth, and it seems likely that Parker would be the starter at power forward with the Knicks, which would push Noah Vonleh into a more familiar bench role.
Parker could also figure into the small forward mix with rookie Kevin Knox and former first-round pick Mario Hezonja.
Despite the fact that Parker is young and the Bulls are going nowhere this season with an NBA-worst 7-25 record, they seem willing to move on from Parker.
The Knicks haven’t been much better than Chicago with a 9-24 mark, but the Big Apple could be a good fit for Parker given New York’s need for frontcourt options with Kristaps Porzingis still on the shelf after tearing his ACL last season.
Republican senators say they’ve done their job, and now it’s up to Trump and the House to figure something out.
Bob Corker could only laugh at Republicans’ predicament as President Donald Trump vowed not to sign the Senate’s stopgap spending bill. He laughed harder still when Ted Cruz walked by and insisted the party must fund the border wall.
The retiring GOP senator seemed almost punch-drunk on the chaos of the last few days as Trump again threatens a shutdown over border wall funding that Democrats simply won’t give him. But Corker said there was little to do other than sit back, watch the shutdown circus and keep a good sense of humor.
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“Well, why not?” Corker responded when asked about his laughter. “You can’t make this stuff up. Y’all have fun.”
The Foreign Relations chairman’s colleagues might not have been in such good spirits, but Senate Republicans seem sanguine about their decision to pass a stopgap spending bill that the president now says he won’t sign. Most of them have already left for the holidays, though they’re prepared to return at short notice if needed to vote on critical government funding legislation.
In their view, they’ve done their job and now it’s up to the House and the president to work something out. In theory, the Senate could come back Friday to vote on a bill providing Trump with his $5 billion for the border wall; it would almost certainly either be defeated or the wall funding would be stripped out. But the Senate GOP seems unworried about the day ahead and the potential for a partial shutdown in 24 hours.
More than half of the 51-member conference has skipped town and they were all caught flat-footed by the president’s news.
During lunch, a handful of GOP senators learned of the president’s decision over Twitter, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) left the room quickly to talk to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). The rest of the Republicans trickled out, relatively unworried about the path ahead.
“Who knows, this could all change in 30 minutes,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a shutdown battle veteran, looked at his watch when asked how he was feeling about a potential shutdown: “It’s only 2 clock. Quite a bit of even this day left.” Still, he said he might be more worried in a day.
“It’s hard to come up with politics that are worse than shutdown politics. Unless it’s shutdown at Christmas politics,” Blunt said.
Cruz (R-Texas), who had evidently hit Corker’s funny bone, was tut-tutting his party for ignoring him. He wanted the GOP to pass legislation through budget reconciliation to evade Democratic filibusters and fund the wall, which would have required the support of 50 GOP senators and all manner of parliamentary tactics.
But he said such an attempt would have been better than being at the political whims of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
“The Democratic obstruction we’re seeing right now, that handwriting was on the wall. It was clear it was coming anyway. Unfortunately, my suggestion wasn’t followed,” he said.
Schumer came to the floor to say no matter what tactics Trump uses now, he won’t get what he wants.
“If President Trump vetoed a short-term spending bill, he would no doubt compound the serious errors he’s made throughout this budget process,” Schumer said. “Most importantly, it would not move the needle an inch towards the president getting his wall.”
The political maneuvering fell flat with Corker, who is far more concerned with the president’s decision to abruptly pull U.S. forces out of Syria. The fighting over the border wall was entertaining enough to him, but not necessarily worth coming back to D.C. for.
“I may not see y’all for a while,” Corker said. So he’s not coming back even if the Senate votes again? “I doubt it.”
New Orleans Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan engaged in an entertaining debate Wednesday with a reporter who suggested Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was a top-five QB in the current era and a future member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Jordan questioned whether Big Ben was better than Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning and Philip Rivers, and he suggested he’d even place Eli Manning ahead of the Steelers’ signal-caller.
Here’s a look at the exchange:
Simon Chester @SimonAChester
#Saints Cam Jordan is not buying the idea that #Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger is a future Hall of Famer. Apparently, he’s not even one of the Top 5 QB of his era – “I’d honestly put Eli before I put Ben” #PITvsNO #HereWeGo https://t.co/eUxl5N3Nxshttps://t.co/uoBdAEu4jN
Jordan didn’t take away from Roethlisberger’s accomplishments, which include two Super Bowl titles, six Pro Bowl selections and Offensive Rookie of the Year honors in 2006, saying the longtime Pittsburgh standout’s “numbers are always impressive.”
The 29-year-old edge-rusher pushed back hard when the reporter suggested that was enough to elevate him into the true upper echelon of modern-day quarterbacks, though.
Ultimately, debates about whether players belong within their sport’s hierarchy are part of what helps sports transcend generations. And there will never be a definitive conclusion, whether it’s an era debate such as Manning vs. Brady or an all-time conversation like the NBA’s Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James.
Although Roethlisberger’s resume is strong enough to eventually earn him enshrinement in Canton, Jordan is clearly not convinced he’s one of the best in history.
Perhaps they can have a debate of their own on the field when the Saints and Steelers face off Sunday afternoon in New Orleans.
US President Donald Trump “will not sign” a temporary spending bill to keep the government open, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said on Thursday.
Ryan cited Trump’s dispute with Democrats over funding for his proposed border wall.
Ryan’s comments came after he and other House Republicans spoke to Trump on Thursday.
According to US media, Republican leaders had thought they had come to a compromise to avert a government shutdown, but White House Press Secretary said, “We urgently need funding for border security and that includes a wall”.
Trump sent mixed signals this week on whether he was willing to shut down the government if he did not get the $5bn he requested to help build the proposed wall on the US southern border.
After Trump previously said he would be “proud” to shut down the government “for border security”, the White House appeared to walk back on the president’s comments on Monday, signalling that the administration had found an alternative way to get the money needed for the wall.
On Thursday morning, however, as the midnight Friday deadline for a funding bill loomed, Trump again lashed out at Democrats, tweeting that he would not sign “any of their legislation, including infrastructure, unless it has perfect Border Security”.
Government shutdown looms
Democrats have insisted that funding for the wall is a “non-starter”, and they would instead be willing to allocate money for other less expensive border security projects, including fences.
Politicians had hoped Trump would sign a temporary funding bill that would have kept the government open until February 8. But some Republicans said it would be better to fight for the border wall now as Democrats are set to take control of the House in the new year.
If a deal is not made before the deadline, more than 800,000 federal workers would face furloughs or be forced to work without pay, disrupting government operations before the holidays.
CNN, citing an unnamed senior administration official, reported that the administration had started the process of notifying government employees who may be affected by a potential government shutdown.
The current budget dispute has its roots in a mammoth spending bill President Donald Trump grudgingly signed in March, which did not fund his border wall. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images
The president has been under fire from his usual allies on several issues
President Donald Trump reversed himself on budget negotiations with Congress on Thursday after pressure from his conservative base approached unsustainable levels, rattling a president who has come under fire over multiple issues this week.
As he obsessively monitored mounting criticism from the right that cast him as an inept negotiator who is being rolled by Congressional Democrats, Trump came to second-guess his earlier decision to sign a bill that would keep the government funded through Feb. 8. He has alternately seethed and panicked about the stream of invective he’s hearing from allies on television, lashing out at aides and flailing for a solution. On Thursday, he informed House leaders that he would not sign a stopgap bill passed by the Senate last night.
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In recent days Trump has endured some of the harshest commentary of his presidency from typically staunch allies, who say that he is capitulating to Democratic opposition. The conservative commentator Ann Coulter said on Wednesday that Trump will have had a “joke presidency” if he doesn’t build his long-promised border wall. Filling in for Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday, the conservative commentator Dan Bongino said of the Trump base: “They want their wall and they want it now.”
Mark Meadows, the Trump ally who chairs the House Freedom Caucus and was a lead candidate for White House chief of staff, said Wednesday morning that the short-term funding bill the president is considering would be a “Christmas present” to his Democratic opponents. Meadows and his fellow House conservatives are revolting against any spending bill that does not include billions of dollars for a border wall.
Compounding the president’s headaches is anger from within his party over Trump’s abrupt announcement of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria and his support for a criminal justice reform bill passed by the Senate this week. For good measure, the stock market — which Trump monitors closely — continued its steady decline Thursday deeper into negative territory for the year, a move some market analysts attributed to uncertainty over the budget talks.
Trump hardened his position Thursday after earlier signaling that he would accept a deal that does not include the $5 billion in border spending he had personally demanded just a week ago. Senate Democrats, who adamantly oppose funding a wall, can use their filibuster power to block any budget action.
The shift came as conservatives are roiled over multiple issues — including the criminal justice reform bill’s Senate passage, which law-and-order Republicans have assailed as a “jail break” for violent offenders. GOP Senators and conservative commentators have also piled on Trump for his plan to pull U.S. troops from Syria, which critics called a concession to Russia and Iran. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who generally defends Trump, called it an “Obama-like decision” — a grave insult to a president who often defines himself against his predecessor.
The maelstrom of criticism has sent the president into a tailspin a day and a half before a fourth of the government is set to shut down, second-guessing a slate of recent decisions and searching frantically for solutions.
“When I begrudgingly signed the Omnibus Bill, I was promised the Wall and Border Security by leadership. Would be done by end of year (NOW). It didn’t happen!” Trump tweeted Thursday morning, in a signal of the firmer stance he would later adopt.
Graham had also urged Trump to stand strong on the border wall. “I thought he had a good position. You shouldn’t take these things on if you’re not going to see it through. I thought $5 billion was a reasonable amount given the caravan. I respect their decision to try and avoid a government shutdown, but I think long-term this hurts,” Graham said of the wall. As for the Syria decision, Graham was even more firm in a letter to Trump along with other senators in both parties: “Reconsider your proposal.”
The talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, meanwhile, expressed exasperation that the president backed a criminal justice reform bill but was preparing to cave on wall funding.
“How in the hell does this get passed with no controversy, no opposition, no problem? I mean, Washington came together to pass this thing in like 10 minutes,” Limbaugh said of the criminal justice bill on Wednesday. “Meanwhile, $5 billion, a measly $5 billion — when compared to the size of the federal budget for border security — is an impossibility. Somebody needs to explain to me how this happened.”
Trump set the tone in a televised Oval Office meeting with his Democratic opponents last week, in which he demanded the $5 billion and said he would be “proud” to take responsibility for a government shutdown forced by his border-security spending demands. Many Republicans cringed at the performance, deeming it more emotional outburst than tactical move.
“Rarely do you put all your chips in the middle of the table. The president speaks out of frustration often, but that doesn’t tell you where he’s going to end up. But it certainly tells us where his intent, impulse and instinct is,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who backs a bill providing $25 billion in border wall funding.
Since then, Trump has been torn between immigration hawks urging him to stand strong, like Meadows and presidential adviser Stephen Miller, and more conciliatory members of his legislative affairs team, who have pushed for compromise.
The White House dispatched Miller to last Sunday’s talk shows, where he repeated Trump’s maximal demands. Two days later, Sanders said he might scrounge and redirect spare billions for the wall from across departments and agencies — an idea critics said would be illegal and which had White House lawyers studying the issue.
As the president backed down on his insistence for $5 billion for the border wall this week, Republican leaders responded to his lessening demands. Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-Ky.) offered Democrats a bill delivering $1.6 billion in fencing and an additional $1 billion for border security. But that too was rejected by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). By the end of the week Trump was talking about the wall having “slats” rather than a concrete barrier, a line echoed by his staff on TV.
The current budget dispute has its roots in a mammoth spending bill Trump grudgingly signed in March, which did not fund his border wall. The president fumed afterwards as conservatives, including Trump pal Sean Hannity, panned him for signing it. In September, GOP leaders asked him to back down again and kick the wall fight until after the November election, vowing to battle with Democrats for his priorities.
But by the time the shutdown fight came, House Republicans couldn’t muster the votes to even send a border wall bill to the Senate and there appeared no other option but to concede the fight to entrenched Democratic opposition.
“The border wall will not make America more secure. It’s possible that his own advisers have made that clear to the president. And he has decided this is not a fight worth having in this moment,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
There’s little reason to think that Trump’s hand will grow stronger over time — especially with Democrats poised to assume their majority status in the House next month.
“The President has no leverage,” the Fox News host Brian Kilmeade told White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on “Fox & Friends” yesterday.
Conway argued that Democrats have mischaracterized the budget debate, short handing Trump’s position as being all about a physical wall when his demands include numerous other border security measures.
“First of all, let’s not all acquiesce to the ridiculous soundbite that this is about a wall. They’re trying to make a wall a four-letter word when the president has been talking about border security all along,” Conway said.
Democrats say it doesn’t matter how the White House spins it: No wall money will be allocated.
“We are resolutely against the border wall. I don’t see any way we could get it,” Schumer said in an interview. “All this talk about reprogramming? He needs Congress to go along and we won’t.”
Trump also happens to love suspense, leading some to believe that he is simply creating drama while still planning to sign a short-term spending bill without wall funding. He’s scheduled to go to Mar-a-Lago this weekend, and past GOP leaders are warning him that a partial government shutdown over the holidays won’t improve his position, either.
“Shutting down on Christmas is not clever,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker who oversaw a six-week government shutdown from November 1995 to January 1996. “I think they can go into the new year and continue to fight. I’m not so sure from his standpoint that if he ended up with five or six more two-week deals that he’d care.”
The Sacramento Kings and Indiana Pacers will play two preseason games in India prior to the 2019-20 season.
According to a press release received by CNN’s Jillian Martin, NBAdeputy commissioner Mark Tatum officially announced the games Thursday.
The preseason contests between the Kings and Pacers will mark the first time a North American pro sports league has held games in India.
Sacramento and Indiana will clash at the NSCI Dome in Mumbai on October 4 and 5.
Kings owner Vivek Ranadive is an India native who has wanted to hold a game in India since buying the Kings in 2013, per Zillgitt.
“As an Indian-American, it is an honor to help bring this historic moment to the country where I was raised,” Ranadive said.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver also commented on the games, saying, “Our inaugural NBA India Games will help further untap the enormous basketball potential in a country with a thriving sports culture and a growing, young and engaged population.”
Ranadive has been a key figure in increasing the NBA’s popularity in India, and he believes it is an important part of the NBA’s global initiative: “The sport is experiencing tremendous growth in India, and we are excited about continuing to expand the NBA’s reach to fans across the globe. The world wants to watch basketball, and India is a fast-growing new frontier.”
India is the latest host in a long line of international NBA games over the past several seasons.
Preseason games have been held in China, Brazil, Taiwan, the Philippines and several other countries, while regular-season games have taken place in England, Mexico and Japan.
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