NEWS
Volkswagen Takes Fresh Swing at Tesla With “Project Trinity”
Volkswagen just teased the new venture with some promising claims. Project Trinity will result in a sedan with “high range, extremely short charging times, and revolutionary production.” What this all means, of course, is still quite unclear. But it does leave room for a heck of a lot of speculation. Let us peer once more into the (often flawed) automotive industry crystal ball. Right now, the only EV Americans can buy from VW is the ID4. At full tilt, with a 125-kW charger handy, that electrified SUV’s battery will charge from 5 percent full to 80 percent in roughly 40 minutes. In isolation that sounds pretty good, but compare that to what you can get out of a Tesla Supercharger, and the VW loses out. The current Tesla Model S, when hooked up to a V3 Supercharger station...
SZA Shares “Good Days” Video with “Shirt” Teaser: Watch
SZA scored her first Top 10 hit as a solo artist with “Good Days”, and now the Top Dawg Entertainment singer has released the song’s self-directed music video. The five-minute clip features a preview of her next single, “Shirt”, at the end. In the fairytale-inspired clip, the New Jersey native alternates between performing the song in a field surrounded by mushrooms, a la Alice in Wonderland, and twirling around a stripper pole in a library reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast. Released on Christmas Day 2020, “Good Days” features additional vocals from Jacob Collier. It is expected to appear on SZA’s long-awaited follow-up to 2017’s Ctrl alongside her Ty Dolla $ign collaboration, “Hit Different”. Watch the “Good Days” music video below. Editors’ Picks [embedded content] Rel...
Mumford and Sons’ Winston Marshall Praises Right-Wing Agitator Andy Ngo
Mumford and Sons banjoist Winston Marshall took to social media on Saturday to laud noted right-wing agitator Andy Ngo as a “brave man” and congratulate him on publishing a book about ANTIFA’s “radical plan to destroy democracy.” “Finally had the time to read your important book,” Marshall tweeted. Ngo has emerged as a popular voice on the far right due to his reporting on left-wing groups. However, critics of Ngo say he often publishes selectively edited and misleading content in order to paint left-wing activists as violent while downplaying similar conduct on the right. Ngo has also been accused of associating himself with far-right groups such as the Proud Boys. And in a 2019 video, he was captured standing with members of white supremacist outfit Patriot Prayer as they planned an...
Sneak a Peek at the 2022 Jeep Wagoneer SUV Before Its March Debut
Although we don’t expect the production SUV to be a spitting image of its concept counterpart, we do believe it will maintain the Grand Wagoneer show vehicle’s basic design details. As Jeep’s 15-second teaser for the forthcoming model shows, the brand’s newest model’s mug will lose the concept version’s unibrow light strip spanning the headlights. It also looks to welcome larger tri-LED fog lamps in its lower fascia. Overall, though, we expect the production Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer to retain the concept SUV’s upright profile and available two-tone roof. A wiper ought to find its way to the rear window, which sadly is not expected to motor its way down into the hatch itself like that of the original Grand Wagoneer (or the current Toyota 4Runner ...
Cardi B Returns and Teases New Music After Deactivating Her Twitter Account
She then tweeted a short audio snippet of a new song, in which she seems to be rapping “I need more money than problems this year.” On Saturday evening, she got on Twitter again to give her followers a brief update on her upcoming plans. “After next week I’m going full album mode,” Cardi tweeted along with another clip — a throwback of the rapper working on “Red Barz.” “I was hungry around this time .Perfecting & writing my s—.” “Im going to complete some business do things for ‘UP’ then I’m out !but please let’s stay on topic & not ask me about things when ya know I don’t like talkin bout my moves,” she said. Cardi B announced the arrival of her doll on Today Friday morning, opening up ab...
Andra Day Honored by Black Women Film Network for ‘Billie Holiday’ Role
The honor comes less than a week after Day won the Golden Globe best actress in a drama trophy for her performance in Hulu’s The United States vs. Billie Holiday, becoming the second-ever Black actress to win the category and the first to do so in 35 years. Day was a first-time Globes winner. She was also nominated for best original song with Raphael Saadiq for “Tigress & Tweed” from the film, which is now streaming. Her win marks the category’s first Black winner since Whoopi Goldberg, who became the first Black actress to do so in 1986. Halle Berry famously lost the category for Monster’s Ball but went on to win the Oscar in 2002. And Angela Bassett, who was a presenter on Sunday, was the last Black actress to win best actress in a comedy or musical, in 1994. ...
Lizzo on What It’s Really Like Living ‘Obese’: ‘My Bank Account Is So Fat’
Looking at the camera and pretending to hold back tears (while also trying to hold back laughter), Lizzo continued, “I put on my obese Louis Vuitton house slippers, and I walk into my massive, obese bathroom and I just stare into my wall-to-wall, obese mirror and lather myself in the most obese, expensive oils and creams, and — oh, god — I walk into my obese, gorgeous, mid-century modern kitchen, and by the time I’ve made it into my kitchen, I’ve already made another obese million dollars.” “My bank account is so fat,” she sobbed. “My bank account is so obese, and, like, I tried to put it on a diet but she’s just so stubborn, like, she won’t listen.” Watch her fire back at the attempted body-shaming on Instagram. Her r...
The Wire’s David Simon Bringing We Own This City Series to HBO
For his next HBO series,The Wire creator David Simon is returning to Baltimore to tell the story of a corrupt Baltimore crime task force. Entitled We Own This City, the limited series is an adaptation of investigative journalist Justin Fenton’s bookWe Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops and Corruption. We Own the City is set in Baltimore in 2015, as protestors demand justice for the suspicious death of 25-year-old African-American Freddie Gray while in police custody. In response to mounting pressure from the mayor’s office and a federal investigation over Gray’s death, the police department turned to Sergeant Wayne Jenkins and his elite plainclothes Gun Trace Task Force to help get guns and drugs off the street. Jenkins used this power to exploit the city, skimming from d...
Beyoncé Shares Stirring Medley Tribute to Late Superfan Lyric Chanel: Stream
Beyoncé has released a stirring medley tribute to Lyric Chanel, a 13-year-old girl who died on Friday after years of battling brain cancer and anaplastic ependymoma. As Complex points out, Lyric caught Bey’s attention last year with a video singing one of her hit songs. The tribute was shared on Beyoncé’s website, with photos and video clips of Lyric being shown as Bey performs acoustic renditions of “Brown Skin Girl”, “Halo”, and “Love on Top”. In the chorus of the latter song, she replaces “baby” with Lyric’s name. “I love you with all of my heart,” Beyoncé says at the end of the video. Lyric was a social media sensation for her strength and optimism during her fight against cancer. In addition to Beyoncé, she caught the attention of Cardi B and formed a close bond with Houston rapper Tr...
Turntable.fm is Back—But With a Twist
Fans of social music platform Turntable.fm despaired when the app was shuttered in 2013. Despite being active for only two-and-a-half years, the app developed a cult-like following, prompting many calls and petitions to bring the platform back in the years since. Today, those calls were answered two-fold, as Turntable.fm is poised to make a comeback and a new platform, Turntable.org, is readying its own launch. The two platforms seem to have the same core format, allowing users to create their own rooms and perform for digital audiences. However, Turntable.org will be introducing a subscription-based pricing model. Considering the founders of the original site cited an inability to monetize the platform at a pace capable of offsetting their costs at the time, perhaps a subscription w...
Kia Adds a Benjamin to the Niro’s Price for 2021
The new goodies include a standard rear passenger alert, a remote engine start feature (for cars equipped with the smart key), and there are some upgrades to Kia’s smart cruise control system that allows it to better deal with bends in the road. Niros equipped with the larger 8-inch infotainment display wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard, a connection that previously required a cable. As for pricing, the base Niro LX Hybrid costs $100 more than it did last year, rising to $25,865. The LXS and Touring trims follow suit, coming in at $27,265 and $29,565 respectively. Touring SE and EX Premium models see a marginally higher ($160) price jump and start from $32,125 and $34,125, respectively. The Niro PHEV trims get similar bumps in price. The Niro PHEV LXS comes in at $2...
California City Bans New Gas Stations—Will Others Follow?
In its commitment to becoming carbon neutral by 2030, the city of Petaluma, California in Sonoma County, approximately 39 miles north of San Francisco, has approved a ban on the new construction of gas stations. The first city in the United States to prohibit the expansion of filling stations, specifically those associated with large retail chains, is also banning the addition of new pumps at existing ones. According to a report by KTVU FOX 2, the city council voted unanimously to pass the measure, which enforces the ban immediately. Free of opposition, the ordinance is said to be widely accepted and supported by residents. The city of Petaluma has a population of 61,000 people across 14.5 square miles, and it’s currently home to 16 gas stations, not counting an earlier approval of a...
