Donald trump

On the morning of Sept. 27, 2021, Josh Hargis opened a private video-chat link for what the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee billed as an open dialogue about its newly implemented mandate. Everyone on Team USA would need to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by Nov. 1, unless they could obtain a medical exemption — or a religious one. The executive order to jump the scientific starting gun on the 2022 Winter Games was a harrowing decision, senior Olympic officials acknowledge, not least because they knew the anti-vaxxer crowd — emboldened by an emerging class of brazenly unvaccinated superstar athletes — would come at them with fake news. “From the start of the pandemic, we have made science-based, data-driven decisions,” the USOPC’s CEO wrote in a memo to all American athletes, which was attached to an invitation for the meeting and obtained by Rolling Stone . “There is strong support for this requirement from our community.” Among two-dozen or so … [Read more...] about ‘Get Vaccinated or Else’: The Anti-Vaxxers of the Winter Games Fought the Olympic Mandate. Did the Mandate Win?

The freezer-truck drivers had finally hauled off the last of the body bags by early autumn, from a makeshift Covid morgue in the city’s parking lot across the street. And by the time Kyrie Irving turned the corner last Friday evening to the Brooklyn Nets ’ riverside practice facility in the neighborhood of Sunset Park, he was let right in. But Omicron had grinched into town for the holidays, and the NBA ’s rigorous testing once again provided early indicators of an unrelenting virus. On the 17th day of December, the league had sent its who’s-who to quarantine: eight Nets a-swabbing, seven Bulls secluding, six Sacramento Kings, five sick Knicks, four Lakers stars, three Boston forwards, two head coaches… and then came a pseudo-pardon for Kyrie. The basketball superstar-turned-superhero of the anti-vaxxers entered a lab set up by the Nets a few steps from the private players’ garage. Two months after banishing him in response to his boycott of a New York City vaccine mandate … [Read more...] about The NBA’s War on Omicron Christmas: Behind Closed Doors with Kyrie Irving and the Anti-Swabber Superstars

Tom Cruise hit on a tangy idea when he decided to turn the old-school CBS series Mission: Impossible (1966-1973) into a film franchise. As producer as well as star, Cruise puts a new director in charge of every movie. So far at the helm, since 1996, we’ve had Brian De Palma, John Woo, J.J. Abrams and Brad Bird (his Ghost Protocol is my fave and the biggest box-office hit in the bunch). Cruise, 53, will presumably play IMF (Impossible Mission Force) undercover agent Ethan Hunt until he’s eligible for AARP. Fine by me. Back in a galaxy far, far away (1986’s Top Gun) , Cruise had a killer line: “I feel the need, the need for speed.” He’s still feeling it. This dude can run, jump, climb, ride and fight like a muthafucker, often shirtless. Cruise is back in action for the fifth time, and no worse for wear, in Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation . The director is Christopher McQuarrie, who cooked up something moody and intense with Cruise in 2012’s Jack Reacher . But … [Read more...] about Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation