Sunday, February 28, 2021

What does justice for Breonna Taylor actually look like?

What does justice for Breonna Taylor actually look like?

This weekly column will turn into a CNN newsletter later this year. Tell us what you’d like to see more of in the newsletter at newsletter.project@cnn.com.

For this week, we think about what justice might look like in the Breonna Taylor case, discuss great performances by the music icons Patti LaBelle and Gladys Knight, and revisit the horrifying history of forced sterilizations. Plus, recommendations: Esquire’s profile of Michael Kenneth Williams and Hulu’s “High Fidelity.”

This week’s culture conversation: Justice for Breonna Taylor?

Brandon: One of the biggest stories this week is the historic settlement in the Breonna Taylor case. On Tuesday, the city of Louisville, Kentucky, announced that it’d pay $ 12 million to Taylor’s family.
Leah: What were your first thoughts when you heard the news?
    B: The announcement was very, very moving. At the same time, like a lot of people, I had a reaction that I’ll sum up as “great, but”: The size of the settlement is great, very definitely, but what about the officers who were involved in the flawed raid that took Taylor’s life?
    Six months later, they still haven’t been charged with a crime.
    “It’s time to move forward with the criminal charges, because she deserves that and much more,” is how Taylor’s mom put it.
    L: Yeah, that’s true. It’s also the largest settlement ever paid by the city of Louisville, right? So off the bat, that was shocking to me, even though it took months of nationwide protests to get there. Right away, though, the sheer size of the sum — and the fact that Taylor’s family got a sizable settlement at all — struck me.
    B: I can sense a “but” coming …
    L: You’re not wrong! BUT: At the end of the day, the money isn’t the most important part of the case. The money is just a bandage. It can’t address the underlying illness of police violence.
    B: Which is why something else also jumped out at me: the promise to institute police reforms. The city agreed to offer a housing program to incentivize officers to live in the areas where they serve, involve social workers when appropriate and tighten the process of how search warrants are issued.
    All that’s important, too, I think.
    L: Yes! Taylor’s mom touched on the role of the reforms: “Justice for Breonna means that we will continue to save lives in her honor. No amount of money accomplishes that, but the police reform measures that we were able to get passed as a part of this settlement mean so much more to my family, our community and to Breonna’s legacy.”
    B: That, to me, is the takeaway: The settlement is a big step, but it’s still just one step on a longer path to justice.

    ICYMI: Patti LaBelle vs. Gladys Knight

    Patti Labelle and Gladys Knight in the latest "Verzuz" battle.

    Why we’re excited: The latest Verzuz battle pit living legends Patti LaBelle and Gladys Knight against each other. But battle doesn’t feel like the right way to describe the incredible event.
    For more than two hours, the two women didn’t just revisit their catalogues that have helped to define R&B (their hits include “Midnight Train to Georgia,” “Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye),” “New Attitude,” and “If Only You Knew”). They reflected on how their careers have overlapped, gushed about their families, and showered praise on their “opponent’s” musical artistry. The show was a broadcast of Black love.
    Or as LaBelle put it, simply but no less movingly, “We are so happy to be together. We’ve been together for many, many, many years.”

    Recommended for your eyes and ears

    Michael K. Williams attends the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar Party.

    Brandon recommends: Esquire profile of Michael Kenneth Williams
    No piece of culture has given me more to chew over this week than Esquire’s profile of Michael Kenneth Williams. That’s because it’s less a profile than a stirring appeal to reconsider how we view Black actors and what they can reveal on screen about Black life.
    “Do you ask (Robert) De Niro, Is he tired of being typecast, all the mob movies he’s made?” Williams said in the story. He was referring to a question that people frequently throw at him, but not at White actors, about whether he’s concerned about being typecast, about portraying characters with broad parallels.
    In “Lovecraft Country,” Williams plays Montrose Freeman, a poor, closeted, 1950s Chicagoan. In “The Wire,” he plays Omar Little — aka the Robin Hood of Baltimore — a poor, gay stickup man who has slick lines like, “You got me confused with a man who repeats himself.”
    But as Williams argued, the focus on supposed typecasting does two things. For one, it glosses over the practical aspect of his work. ” ‘Aren’t you afraid of being typecast?’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m afraid of not eating,’ ” he said. “This is my job.”
    The narrow attention that some people pay to Williams’ roles alludes to something else, too: the assumption that these roles are unwelcome, that they’re stale, that they don’t have anything to say about being Black in America.
    The reality is that Williams’ characters grip audiences precisely because they have so much to say — about Black masculinity, about Black vulnerability.
    Montrose and Omar may have a few things in common, but in Williams’ hands, they become individuals, discrete personalities to engage with. (In 2019, I wrote about why Omar, in all his gay Black glory, is one of the most important characters of the past 25 years.)
    “I will not allow Hollywood to stereotype or to desensitize my experience growing up in the ‘hood,” Williams said. “This is my job as an actor, to show the integrity, to show the class, to show the swagger, to show the danger, to show the pain, to show the bad choices. Those things exist in everyone’s community. But no one’s asking those actors if they’re afraid of being typecast.”
    Fortunately, Williams isn’t daunted by the question. Television would be all the lousier if he were.
    Kravtiz as Rob Brooks on Hulu's "High Fidelity."

    Leah recommends: Hulu’s “High Fidelity”
    When Hulu’s take on the 2000 movie “High Fidelity” debuted in February, starring the incandescent ZoĆ« Kravitz, the excitement was palpable.
    Sure, initial reviews were mixed. But the modern reimagining of “High Fidelity” — which brought depth and record store-coolness to queer folks and women of color rather than to oft-centered cis straight White men — felt exhilarating. It spoke to a generation of young Millennials and Gen Z-ers, creating a world to which many young people of color could relate.
    “I was trying to recreate a world that I know,” Kravitz, 31, told the New York Times ahead of the show’s debut, “and that’s what it looks like. It doesn’t look like a bunch of White girls.”
    It’s not just the sexual and racial diversity of the cast that makes “High Fidelity” stand out. The show is one of the few that has dared to offer an honest portrayal of a messy, sometimes selfish, late-20s queer Black woman.
    When the show was canceled last month, after just one season, Kravitz had a scathing remark for Hulu execs.
    “It’s cool. At least Hulu has a ton of other shows starring women of color we can watch,” she wrote on Instagram. “Oh wait.”
    The line Kravitz was drawing is clear. Hulu, with its “Black Stories” tab, doesn’t seem to care about telling these stories as much as it’d like to seem.
    Weeks later, it was revealed that Season 2 would have focused not on Kravitz’s character but on Cherise, boisterously played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph. (Maybe it shouldn’t matter, but it bears noting: Randolph is a dark-skinned, plus-size Black woman).
    The show is good. It’s got a great soundtrack (thanks in part to the mind of Questlove), a fun cast and witty dialogue. It’s a shame we weren’t allowed to see it grow, but its cancellation is also a painful reminder: that even after a historic summer, much of America is still only interested in minority stories on certain terms.

    Around the office

    After allegations arose this week regarding a high rate of hysterectomies, or the removal of uteruses, and general medical neglect at an ICE facility in Georgia, comparisons are being made with the US’s history of forced sterilization.
      This week, CNN’s Catherine Shoichet explored that history in a piece titled, “In a horrifying history of forced sterilizations, some fear the US is beginning a new chapter.”
      “It’s important to know that America was profoundly shaped by the Eugenics Movement. … The legacies continue to play out and the lessons have not been learned,” Alexandra Minna Stern, a professor and associate dean at the University of Michigan, told Shoichet. “It’s an integral part of understanding the history of inequality in the United States, and how social ideas can be twisted to promote dehumanization.”

      >>>>

      The 37 most outrageous lines from Donald Trump’s call with the Georgia secretary of state

      The 37 most outrageous lines from Donald Trump's call with the Georgia secretary of state

      Over the weekend, President Donald Trump spent an hour on the phone with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) in an attempt to convince the state’s top election official to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state. Even for Trump, it was a remarkable moment — an attempt to lean on an elections official to find more votes that would somehow alter the outcome of the election.

      Thanks to The Washington Post, which broke the news, the full audio of the call is available. I went through the transcript of the call and pulled out the lines you need to see. They’re below.
      1. “We won very substantially in Georgia. You even see it by rally size, frankly. We’d be getting 25-30,000 people a rally and the competition would get less than 100 people.”
      Well, I’m convinced! Trump has always been entirely convinced that having large rallies = winning. Of course, even if Trump had 30,000 people at a rally, that’s roughly .6% of the 4.9 million votes cast in Georgia this fall. Math! And away we go!
        2. “We have at least 2 or 3 — anywhere from 250-300,000 ballots were dropped mysteriously into the rolls. Much of that had to do with Fulton County, which hasn’t been checked.”
        I am not sure what Trump is talking about here. (This will be a running theme.) My guess is that he is equating the entirely legitimate process of early votes being tabulated and included in the statewide totals as votes being “mysteriously” dropped.
        3. “We think that if you check the signatures — a real check of the signatures going back in Fulton County you’ll find at least a couple of hundred thousand of forged signatures of people who have been forged.”
        There is zero evidence for this claim.
        4. “But it’s much more than the number of 11,779 that’s — The current margin is only 11,779.”
        Fact Check: True!
        5. “But you also have a substantial numbers of people, thousands and thousands who went to the voting place on November 3, were told they couldn’t vote, were told they couldn’t vote because a ballot had been put on their name.”
        There’s zero evidence for this claim. The closest I could find was back in September when Raffensperger announced that roughly 1,000 people had tried to double-vote.
        6. “Late in the morning, they went early in the morning they went to the table with the black robe, the black shield and they pulled out the votes. Those votes were put there a number of hours before the table was put there.”
        It’s all nonsense.” — The Washington Post
        7. “They weren’t in an official voter box, but they were in what looked to be suitcases or trunks, suitcases but they weren’t in voter boxes. The minimum number it could be because we watched it and they watched it certified in slow motion instant replay, if you can believe it, but slow motion and it was magnified many times over and the minimum it was 18,000 ballots, all for Biden.”
        This isn’t true. (See No. 6.) Also, “slow motion instant replay”!!!!
        8. “You had out-of-state voters. They voted in Georgia but they were from out of state, of 4,925. You had absentee ballots sent to vacant, they were absentee ballots sent to vacant addresses.”
        “Every one we’ve been through are people that lived in Georgia, moved to a different state but then moved back to Georgia legitimately.” — Ryan Germany, lawyer for the Georgia secretary of state’s office
        9. “And I know you would like to get to the bottom of it, although I saw you on television today and you said that you found nothing wrong. I mean, you know, and I didn’t lose the state, Brad.”
        “I saw you on television today.” — The President of the United States
        10. “People have been saying that it was the highest vote ever. There was no way. A lot of the political people said that there’s no way they beat me.”
        So, if it was “the highest vote ever,” Trump couldn’t have lost? Yeah, this checks out.
        11. “As you know, every single state … we won every state.”
        Mr. President, I have the Electoral College map on line one for you.
        12. “And we won the House, but we won every single state house and we won Congress, which was supposed to lose 15 seats, and they gained, I think 16 or 17 or something.”
        Mr. President, I have Speaker Nancy Pelosi on line two for you.
        13. “So dead people voted and I think the number is close to 5,000 people.”
        There is zero evidence for this claim.
        14. “The bottom line is, when you add it all up and then you start adding, you know, 300,000 fake ballots …”
        It appears as though he literally just made this number up.
        15. “And this may or may not … because this just came up this morning that they are burning their ballots, that they are shredding, shredding ballots and removing equipment.”
        16. “You’re not the only one, I mean, we have other states that I believe will be flipping to us very shortly.”
        Oh really? Give me a list of those states. I’ll wait …
        17. “But in Detroit, we had, I think it was, 139% of the people voted. That’s not too good.
        Turnout in Detroit was 51% of eligible voters. Which is less than 139%.
        18. “In Pennsylvania, they had well over 200,000 more votes than they had people voting.”
        [narrator voice] They didn’t.
        19. “But, uh, they had as an example, in Michigan, a tremendous number of dead people that voted.”
        20. “And we won the state and we won it very substantially and easily and we’re getting, we have, much of this is a very, you know they’re certified, far more certified than we need.”
        This stuff isn’t just being certified. It’s being “far more certified than we need.” So you know it’s good.
        21. “But we only lost the state by that number, 11,000 votes, and 779.”
        So, the 11 is in the thousands column, the 7 is in the hundreds column, the 7 is in the tens column and the 9 is in the ones column …
        22. “Because, what’s the difference between winning the election by two votes and winning it by half a million votes. I think I probably did win it by half a million.”
        OK, so Trump is saying that rather than losing Georgia by 11,770 votes, he won it by 500,000 votes? Man, these Georgians need to get their math straight!
        23. “And they say it’s not possible to have lost Georgia.”
        Well, if “they” say it …
        24. “And the people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”
        In which the President of the United States suggest Georgia’s top election official redo the results of a vote that has already been certified and validated by the state’s electors. Very normal stuff!
        25. “They did it in slow motion replay magnified, right?”
        The only thing missing here is from Trump to break out the telestrator to explain it all.
        26. “Where were the poll watchers and why did they say a water main broke, which they did and which was reported in the newspapers? They said they left. They ran out because of a water main break, and there was no water main. There was nothing. There was no break.”
        Gabriel Sterling, the voting system implementation manager, said this in December when the water main issue first appeared: “You’ll see when they walk in, and they see the obvious water leak on the floor. You will see when they move all the stuff out of the way. You will see the Zamboni, little carpet-dryer thingy driving around. I mean, you can see all the things happen, you can see the table get put in place.” He also said at the time that no ballots were damaged or altered, according to surveillance video footage.
        27. “There’s no way I lost Georgia. There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”
        Yes, you’ve said that a few times now …
        28. “Oh this isn’t social media. This is Trump media. It’s not social media. It’s really not, it’s not social media. I don’t care about social media.”
        “I don’t care about social media.” — Donald Trump, with a straight face, apparently.
        29. “And they’re going around playing you and laughing at you behind your back, Brad, whether you know it or not, they’re laughing at you and you’ve taken a state that’s a Republican state, and you’ve made it almost impossible for a Republican to win because of cheating, because they cheated like nobody’s ever cheated before.”
        This is a common Trump tactic to bend people to his viewpoint: People are laughing at you behind your back! Which is obviously something he worries a lot about for himself and thinks others do, too.
        30. “And you are going to find that they are — which is totally illegal, it is more illegal for you than it is for them because, you know what they did and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.”
        In which Trump not-so-subtly threatens Raffensperger (and his lawyer Ryan Germany) that in defending this allegedly corrupt election they are putting themselves in some sort of legal jeopardy. Totally fine!
        31. “And flipping the state is a great testament to our country because, cause you know, this is — it’s a testament that they can admit to a mistake, or whatever you want to call it.”
        Oh, so overturning a certified election result is actually a good thing for our country because it, uh, shows we can admit we made a mistake?
        32. “But I mean, all of this stuff is very dangerous stuff. When you talk about no criminality, I think it’s very dangerous for you to say that.”
        This feels very ominous from Trump. Very.
        33. “But, but I’m just curious why wouldn’t, why do you keep fighting this thing? It just doesn’t make sense. We’re way over the 17,779, right?”
        First of all, the margin is 11,779. Second, the reason the election officials “keep fighting this thing” is because you don’t get to overturn an election just because you didn’t like the result.
        34. “Because you guys are so wrong. And you treated this. You treated the population of Georgia so badly. You, between you and your governor, who was down at 21, he was down 21 points. And like a schmuck, I endorsed him and he got elected, but I will tell you, he is a disaster.”
        “[Brian Kemp is] an incredible fighter and tireless champion for the people and values of Georgia.” — Donald Trump, November 2018
        35. “And you would be respected. Really respected, if this thing could be straightened out before the election.”
        Another classic Trump persuasion ploy: If only you would overturn this election, people in Georgia would love you! They would respect you!
        36. “They don’t want to vote. They hate the state, they hate the governor and they hate the secretary of state. I will tell you that right now. The only people like you are people that will never vote for you.”
        Trump suggest here that if Republicans lose the two Senate runoffs on Tuesday it’s because of Raffensperger’s refusal to give the state to Trump. Which, uh, well, OK.
          37. “And the real truth is I won by 400,000 votes. At least. That’s the real truth. But we don’t need 400,000. We need less than 2,000 votes.”
          I thought he need 11,779 votes +1? Now it’s 2,000. How? Why? Yeah, this feels like a good place to end.

          >>>>

          Anne Hathaway reveals we’ve all been calling her the wrong name

          Anne Hathaway reveals we've all been calling her the wrong name

          Oscar-winning actress Anne Hathaway wants everybody to start calling her by her nickname, Annie.

          Hathaway, whose most recent movie “Locked Down” premieres on HBO Max on Thursday, told Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show” that the only close person who ever calls her Anne is her mother — and only when she’s really angry.
          “Call me Annie. Everybody, everybody, call me Annie. Please,” she said during a video appearance on the show on Tuesday.
          “When I was 14 years old I did a commercial and I had to get my SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card and they asked me ‘what do you want your name to be?’
          “And I’m like, well it should be my name — my name is Anne Hathaway… and that seemed like the right choice, but it never occurred to me that for the rest of my life people would call me Anne,” she told Fallon in the interview.
          “The only person who ever calls me Anne is my mother, and she only does it when she’s really mad at me. Like, really mad.
          “And so every time I step out in public and someone calls my name I think they’re going to yell at me,” she joked. “Call me anything but Anne.”
          “Locked Down,” who she stars in with Chiwetel Ejiofor, tells the story of a couple tested by the restrictions of quarantine and builds out to include a heist plot with appearances from Ben Stiller, Ben Kingsley and Dule Hill.
          Hathaway, who is 38 and has a 4-year-old and 1-year-old with husband Adam Shulman, also spoke to Fallon about caring for her children during lockdown.
          “It’s been a lot,” she said, “but those are good ages to be home with your kids because our 4-year-old believes everything we tell him — and that’s adorable as well as very useful — and our 1-year-old… it’s just the most magic age.”
          Hathaway has previously shared her support for women struggling with infertility.
          In an Instagram post in 2019 announcing her second pregnancy, she said: “It’s not for a movie…#2. All kidding aside, for everyone going through infertility and conception hell, please know it was not a straight line to either of my pregnancies.
          “Sending you extra love.”

          >>>>

          A ‘Pineapple Express’ is headed for the rain-soaked Northwest

          A 'Pineapple Express' is headed for the rain-soaked Northwest

          An atmospheric river event known as the “Pineapple Express” is forecast to bring a prolonged period of wet weather to Washington and Oregon beginning Sunday.

          The effects from rain and considerable mountain snow will be felt through early this week. With the ground already saturated from previous storms, flooding is possible even from a few inches of rain the storm is forecast to produce.
          “This will mark the beginning of a wet period across Western Washington, as the southern periphery of the Atmospheric River will affect the region before it shifts southward over the area Monday,” the National Weather Service office in Seattle warned Saturday.
          This could be another notable weather event for parts of Washington and Oregon, with localized urban and river flooding along with gusty winds which could lead to power outages across both states.
            Seattle averages 3.5 inches of rain during February but the city has already had more than a foot of rain this year, a surplus of 4 inches.

            How a Pineapple Express forms

            Atmospheric rivers are narrow corridors of the upper atmosphere that transport intense moisture from a large body of water onto land, like rivers in the sky. This particular atmospheric river event is special in terms of where its moisture comes from — Hawaii.
            Pineapple Express is the name given to an atmospheric river that originates near Hawaii and travels across the Pacific Ocean to the western coast of North America.
            When you join together that narrow transport corridor with the tropical Pacific moisture around Hawaii, it can inundate the West Coast with heavy rainfall and snow.
            Not all atmospheric river events are disruptive. However, those that pack large amounts of water vapor and strong winds can cause extreme rainfall and subsequent flooding.
            “When it reaches the West Coast, the Pineapple Express can dump as much as five inches of rain on California in one day,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
            An atmospheric river event in January dumped between 5 and 10 inches of rain across the Olympic Peninsula and extreme northwestern Oregon. The heavy rainfall produced widespread flooding and landslides while high winds caused significant tree damage and power outages in western Washington and northwestern Oregon.

            Everything is forecast to get high

            High winds, high tides, and high potential for river flooding will all be factors from this next storm.
            Winds will consistently range from 15 to 25 mph, gusting as high as 40 mph in the next 72 hours.
            The gusty winds, which will be strongest near the coast, could lead to power outages. This is a concern since there are still thousands of people without power in Oregon from the winter storm that hit over a week ago. This next storm could delay that power being restored by another several days.
            The heaviest rain will stretch from Eugene, Oregon, up to the Canadian border. Widespread rain totals of 2 to 4 inches are forecast for the coastal lowland locations, and 3 to 6 inches for the Olympics and Cascades.
            Flooding will be a concern not only because of the amount of rain that is expected to fall, but also due to the fact that the ground is already at near-saturated levels in many locations, and there will be some snowpack melt as well.
            Snowfall will be limited to the higher elevations, but it will be heavy. Totals will generally range from 12 to 18 inches near White and Stevens Pass, and 8 to 12 inches at Snoqualmie Pass.
              Small-craft advisories are in effect on Sunday, indicating seas 10 feet or higher are expected to produce hazardous wave conditions.
              Additional storm systems are likely for the end of next week, so keep those rain jackets and umbrellas handy.

              >>>>

              Scranton, Pennsylvania, honors famous ‘scrappy kid’ turned President-elect

              Scranton, Pennsylvania, honors famous 'scrappy kid' turned President-elect

              As President-elect Joe Biden prepares to move into the White House, his hometown honored him Friday just steps from his childhood home.

              “This morning I had the opportunity to join U.S. Senator Bob Casey and Marywood University to unveil a Joe Biden Way street sign to honor our President-Elect,” Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti said on Facebook. “This sign is a step toward recognizing this achievement for our City, in hopes of giving a lasting boost of confidence to every child who lives here.”
              The sign is up at the intersection of Fisk Street and North Washington Avenue in the Green Ridge section of the blue-collar town, CNN affiliate WNEP reported.
                “He knows how proud of him we are, and it lifts the people of the city. We feel proud one of ours is the President of the United States,” said former Scranton Mayor Jimmy Connors, according to WNEP.
                  Biden moved with his family to Delaware when he was young and began his career in the US Senate there in the 1970s.
                  Former President Barack Obama has praised Biden, his vice president, as a “scrappy kid from Scranton who became Delaware’s favorite son.”

                  >>>>

                  ‘The Mandalorian’ season finale saves its biggest surprise for last

                  'The Mandalorian' season finale saves its biggest surprise for last

                  The following contains major spoilers about “The Mandalorian” Season 2 finale, “The Rescue,” which premiered Dec. 18.

                  “The Mandalorian” ended its second season with a big bang, further deepening its rich relationship with “Star Wars” lore by capping a run of callbacks and cameos with the granddaddy of them all.

                  Titled “The Rescue,” the mission to save Grogu — a.k.a. The Child and “Baby Yoda” — from the clutches of the evil Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) culminated with a cloaked figure showing up, basically rescuing the rescuers.
                  The lightsaber-wielding savior was revealed to be none other than Luke Skywalker (a digitally rendered version of Mark Hamill), who whisked Grogu off with him, presumably to be trained as a Jedi. If the character’s look was a little stiff — a la those recreated in “Rogue One” — the sequence nevertheless offered another stunning bridge to the original trilogy, with an R2-D2 cameo for good measure.
                  But wait, there was more: A post-credit scene showed the bounty hunter Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) returning to Tatooine, the planet where he had seemingly met his death in “Return of the Jedi.” It closed with a mysterious tease for “The Book of Boba Fett,” premiering a year from now.
                    In the same way “The Empire Strikes Back” was crucial to the franchise’s longevity, this season established the first live-action TV series as a major addition to “Star Wars” mythology, one whose ripples stretch far and wide.
                    The show’s story arc encompassed not only the movies, but the animated series that carried the Lucasfilm banner in between: “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” and “Star Wars Rebels,” punctuated by Rosario Dawson’s appearance as Anakin Skywalker’s padawan, Ahsoka Tano; and Katee Sackhoff as Bo-Katan.
                    The latter returned for the finale in pursuit of the darksaber possessed by Moff Gideon, but if that seemed like a big development, the final flurry of events eclipsed it.
                    Whatever the future holds for “The Mandalorian,” its value to Lucasfilm and Disney+ can hardly be overstated.
                    As the studio announced at its recent Investor Day event, several live-action shows are planned to expand the streaming galaxy — including an Ahsoka spinoff and “Rangers of the New Republic,” both set during “The Mandalorian’s” time frame — indicating the extent to which the 13-month-old service intends to build upon that foundation.
                      Perhaps most impressively, after the divisive nature of the recent “Star Wars” trilogy, “The Mandalorian” has seemingly found that sweet spot of nostalgia and invention — delighting fans in a way that given an adrenaline boost to the entire franchise. That passion can be measured in part by the number of bleary-eyed fans who have felt compelled to stay up past midnight each week and watch new episodes as soon as they drop.
                      All told, the second season represents both a commercial and creative accomplishment, and executive producers Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni can take a well-deserved bow. If Disney+ wants to keep subscribers happy, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, this certainly looks like the way.

                      >>>>

                      ‘Hamilton’ star Daveed Diggs brings his unique style to a new Hanukkah song

                      'Hamilton' star Daveed Diggs brings his unique style to a new Hanukkah song

                      Broadway star Daveed Diggs brings his unique style to a new song for the Disney Channel.

                      “Puppy for Hanukkah” is a hip-hop style song featuring the “Hamilton” star’s distinct vocals and is produced by Diggs with his longtime friends and creative partners William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes.
                      “I was honored when Disney Channel approached me to come up with a fresh Hanukkah tune and embraced the opportunity to share my love of music and a little piece of my culture,” said Diggs in a press release.
                      The fupbeat music video features a little boy who resembles Diggs lip synching the lyrics to the song as he goes through the eight days of Hanukkah gifts to see if he gets a puppy.
                        “Daveed, William and Jonathan created a Hanukkah song for the ages that’s inventive, humorous and relevant as it celebrates the Miracle of Lights, the diverse world we live in, and the universal joy when a family adopts a pet into a child’s life,” said Steven Vincent, vice president of Music and Soundtracks, Disney Branded Television.
                        The music video will be presented on DisneyMusicVEVO and will rotate on Disney Channel and in Disney Stores nationwide this month.

                        >>>>

                        Top congressional Republicans still haven’t acknowledged Biden’s victory

                        Top congressional Republicans still haven't acknowledged Biden's victory

                        President-elect Joe Biden urged the country “to lower the temperature” in his victory speech on Saturday night, but Republican leaders he’ll have to work with in Congress have either urged President Donald Trump to not concede or stayed silent despite no widespread evidence of fraud in the election.

                        Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is likely to limit the scope of Biden’s agenda, has not commented since Friday, the day before the race was called, when he called for “every legal” vote to be counted, while House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy echoed Trump’s claims that the election isn’t over yet.
                        “We’ve had the most competitive presidential race in our modern history,” McCarthy said on Fox News on Sunday. “That’s why every vote should be counted, every recount to go forward, and every challenge should be heard.”
                        The Republican Party is split over how to handle Biden’s victory, as Trump continues to dispute the result. While a small contingent of conservatives want to restore faith in the democratic process, Trump’s fiercest supporters have adopted the President’s mantra to “fight back very hard” when he feels personally mistreated.
                          “This is a contested election,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham said on Fox on Sunday. “The media doesn’t decide who becomes president, if they did, you would never have a Republican president forever.”
                          “Do not concede, Mr. President, fight hard,” the South Carolina Republican added.
                          Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, a member of GOP leadership, said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that “it seems unlikely that any changes could be big enough to make a difference, but this is a close election.”
                          “I look forward to the President dealing with this however he needs to deal with it,” he added.
                          The party’s responses in the aftermath of the election seem to split its past from its future.
                          Former President George W. Bush and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, the Republican party’s 2012 presidential nominee and a frequent Trump critic, congratulated Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Romney called them “people of good will and admirable character” and said he would “pray that God may bless them in the days and years ahead.” Bush called Biden a “good man, who has won his opportunity to lead and unify our country.”
                          And Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, a former governor and secretary of education who is retiring after a four-decade career in public office, said on Saturday that the presidential candidates should fulfill their democratic duty and accept the will of the people.
                          “After counting every valid vote and allowing courts to resolve disputes, it is important to respect and promptly accept the result,” tweeted Alexander. “The orderly transfer or reaffirming of immense power after a presidential election is the most enduring symbol of our democracy.”
                          But Alexander’s Republican incoming successor in the Senate, Bill Hagerty, Trump’s former ambassador to Japan, said that he had contributed to Trump’s legal fund to protect the “integrity” of the election, and retweeted Trump’s statement that “this election is far from over.”
                          Biden triumphed in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — three states that 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton lost — on his way to winning the White House, and currently leads Trump in Arizona and Georgia.
                          Addressing the nation on Saturday before a parking lot in Delaware full of honking supporters, Biden and Harris called on the country to heal after a divisive election.
                          “It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, to lower the temperature, to see each other again, to listen to each other again,” Biden said.
                          But just hours earlier, Trump again falsely claimed that the election was stolen from him, baselessly alleging that election observers were not present at the polls.
                          “I WON THE ELECTION, GOT 71,000,000 LEGAL VOTES,” tweeted the president. “BAD THINGS HAPPENED WHICH OUR OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO SEE. NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WERE SENT TO PEOPLE WHO NEVER ASKED FOR THEM!”
                          While some prominent Republicans are defending the President, publicly at least, some of those closest to him have taken a different approach in private. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, has approached the President about conceding the election, two sources told CNN Saturday. And first lady Melania Trump has advised the President the time has come for him to accept the election loss, a separate source familiar with the conversations told CNN on Sunday.
                          The President’s refusal to concede is obscuring what otherwise was a positive showing for the GOP this year. Republicans unexpectedly gained seats in the House and defeated extremely well-funded Senate Democratic candidates in Maine, Iowa, Montana and elsewhere.
                          “In the Senate, virtually every candidate, even those who were wildly thought to be on the way to winning, over performed,” Billy Piper, a former McConnell chief of staff, told CNN. “That’s a good night.”
                            “It actually appears that in the middle of absolutely horrible circumstances, America has once again run the election it should be proud of,” he added. “The fact that we are counting 150 million ballots as quick as we are, given the uniqueness of how they had to be cast, it’s pretty amazing.”
                            The President’s refusal to accept the results could also complicate the GOP’s hopes of holding onto the Senate. Democrats’ chances of winning the chamber have been reduced to flipping both of Georgia’s Senate seats in two likely January runoff elections in a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic senator in 20 years.

                            >>>>

                            How yoga helps NFL pro bowler Mike Daniels tackle tension

                            How yoga helps NFL pro bowler Mike Daniels tackle tension

                            It might be surprising to people who think of football players training only in the weight room or on the field, but yoga has been a mainstay in the National Football League for quite some time. As a mobility coach in professional sports, I can attest to the growth of yoga’s positive impact on athletes performing at the highest level.

                            It was nearly 20 years ago when I coached my first professional football players, New England Patriots tight ends Benjamin Watson and Daniel Graham, through a yoga session. After it was over, they questioned why they struggled with seemingly simple movements and wondered how yoga could be so taxing yet so relaxing at the same time. What the athletes didn’t question, however, was how good they felt — less tense and more in control of their bodies — and that they wanted more of that feeling.
                            Yoga was a newer concept in football back then, but I wasn’t the only one cultivating its practice. Both the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants employed yoga instructors in some capacity, and other teams began to follow suit.
                            Now, it’s safe to say that yoga is firmly rooted in the NFL. Since my inaugural pro-football yoga session, I’ve had the privilege to use yoga-inspired training with hundreds of players and numerous teams including Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Nelson Agholor and quarterback Deshaun Watson and the entire Houston Texans team.
                              Most teams throughout the league, including the Seattle Seahawks, have their own yoga and meditation coaches on staff these days.
                              So, why has yoga — a modality associated with peace and tranquility — grown to be almost ubiquitous in a sport known for its roughness?
                              Who better to answer that question than a football player who practices yoga?
                              Read on for insights from NFL pro bowler and yoga enthusiast Mike Daniels, defensive tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals.
                              This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
                              CNN: At what point in your career did you start doing yoga?
                              Mike Daniels: I started doing yoga after my fourth season in the NFL, going into my fourth year. I was feeling really stiff, and one of my teammates said I needed to start practicing yoga. He passed along the instructor’s number and, after the first session, I immediately saw results. When I finished, it was like a body-awakening experience. I hadn’t felt that in tune to everything going on around me … ever. I said, “If this is how I’m going to feel after the first session — and we were only doing introductory stuff, I can only imagine how I’m going to feel after I get going.” I was excited in a way that I hadn’t been in a while.
                              CNN: When you say you were feeling really “stiff” before you started yoga, can you elaborate?
                              Daniels: My joints were sore, and I didn’t feel like I was getting the same bounce or spring in my step. When I would run or even get into my football stance, I didn’t feel centered. Everything just felt off.
                              CNN: How long have you been doing yoga now and how have you seen your body change over time?
                              Daniels: I started in 2016, so almost five years, doing hour-long sessions twice a week. I went from feeling like my joints hurt, not feeling springy, just feeling like I’m getting old, to being able to do a split. That’s the positive effect. Any of the little issues I’d felt before, yoga would knock them out. Whether it be tight hip flexors or my hamstrings feeling sore, yoga knocked those issues out of the park.
                              Mike Daniels performs deep lateral lunges, which improve hip mobility. He practices yoga twice a week.

                              I feel so much better now than when I first started yoga. It’s like I’m regressing in age, which isn’t a bad thing in my job.
                              CNN: What are some yoga movements or positions that you feel translate directly to on-field performance?
                              Daniels: There are two of them that I do before practice and games. They’re all about activating my hips. There’s a video of one of them on my Instagram page. It’s like a deep lateral lunge where you stay low and move from side to side.
                              The other one is called a fire hydrant. On your hands and knees, you lift a leg with your knee bent and circle it back and then forward. You have to keep your knee high and your hip open.
                              When I get up from doing these, golly, I’m really explosive. I can get after the ball like the fastest guy out there even if I’m the oldest guy out there. Doing those movements, I have no hamstring, back or knee issues. I’m opened up and I feel awesome. It’s definitely injury preventative.
                              CNN: You’ve mentioned hips, hamstrings, back and knees. Are there any other areas of your body that you target with yoga to help you move and play better?
                              Daniels: Definitely ground-based power. Ankles and calves. My ankles have gotten so much stronger and my calves have gotten bigger. Generating power through my core, too. There’s definitely a lot of core stability stuff — and it’s not easy. But when you have to take on two offensive linemen at a grand total of 600 pounds plus, you need to have that core strength locked in.
                              And the upper body is important, too. I need my shoulders to open up, wrists to open up and my hands to be flexible. When you take an impact pushing through your hands, it starts at your hands but ends at your shoulder.
                              CNN: How has doing yoga impacted your overall strength and conditioning program? Has it changed what you’re doing in the weight room?
                              Daniels: It didn’t really change how I work out. But did it help? Absolutely! It helped tremendously. It’s about the smaller muscles that you don’t think about when you’re doing the bi’s and tri’s vanity workout, so to speak. It’s the muscle stabilizers. It gives you a different kind of strength. You may go up under the bench and move a lot more weight with a lot less effort and energy being used. It’s a game changer.
                              Yoga gives you core control and body awareness. That’s how you directly translate squatting 600 pounds to using it on the football field. You have a lot of guys who are extremely strong in the weight room but they’re not functionally strong. That’s what yoga gives you.
                              CNN: How much of your yoga practice is mentally focused?
                              Daniels: Every session has a mental aspect, whether it’s at the beginning or end or both. Sometimes I’ll only do a session focused on the mental part, centering. Players have to pay attention to what their body is telling them they need. If my body speaks to me, I hear it right away. When it talks, I listen. I can’t not listen because I’m so connected to it.
                              This helps me avoid injury and helps me be more intentional in movements. You can activate muscles more intentionally than your opponents. It’s like you’re using muscles that your opponents didn’t even know existed. It’s like you’re fighting someone with three arms and they don’t even realize they have a third arm.
                                CNN: What would you tell other athletes who are on the fence about adding yoga to their training?
                                Get CNN Health’s weekly newsletter

                                Sign up here to get The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the CNN Health team.

                                Daniels: I’d tell them that if they want to be the best they can be, play longer than their body originally would’ve let them, yoga is going to give you that edge and that extra two years. Yoga is going to make you way more flexible and way more efficient with your movements.

                                >>>>