American hip-hop artist Fatman Scoop, 53, died after collapsing on stage during a concert on Friday night in Connecticut. His family announced his death in an Instagram post uploaded to his official page on Saturday.
“Last night, the world lost a radiant soul, a beacon of light on the stage and in life,” his family wrote. “FatMan Scoop was not just a world class performer, he was a father, brother, uncle, and a friend.”
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Born Isaac Freeman III, Fatman Scoop was best known for his 1999 hit “Be Faithful”—with which he rose to prominence, especially during the song’s re-release in 2003. The rapper was also celebrated for his features on hit songs including Missy Elliott’s “Lose Control” in 2005 and Mariah Carey’s “It’s Like That” the same year. He also collaborated with Pitbull, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, and more. Fatman Scoop went on to become a beloved radio personality and mentored young musicians on the U.K. TV show Chancers. He also appeared as a contestant in the U.K. version of Celebrity Big Brother in 2015.
In an emailed statement to TIME, the musician’s talent agency mn2ns said that they are “heartbroken” over his passing and that “his iconic voice, infectious energy, and great personality made an indelible mark on the industry.”
“I spoke to him just a few days ago, and he was in such good spirits. It’s hard to believe he is no longer with us” said Sharron Elkabas, the musician’s representative.
The rapper’s impact in the hip hop industry has been lauded in tributes since his death.
Rapper Missy Elliott, posted on X (formerly Twitter), sending prayers to his family: “Fatman Scoop VOICE & energy have contributed to MANY songs that made the people feel HAPPY & want to dance for over 2 decades,” she wrote. “Your IMPACT is HUGE & will be NEVER be forgotten.”
On Instagram, musician Questlove posted a photo of Scoop, thanking the rapper “for being an embodiment of what hip hop was truly about. To just forget about your troubles and live in the moment and allow joy in.”
Prayers for Fatman Scoop family for STRENGTH during this difficult time🙏🏾 Fatman Scoop VOICE & energy have contributed to MANY songs that made the people feel HAPPY & want to dance for over 2 decades. Your IMPACT is HUGE & will be NEVER be forgotten..🕊️🙏🏾 pic.twitter.com/e4R9Z3inKd
On his Instagram story, rapper Lil Jon posted a video of Scoop recording his verse on “Lose Control.”
Producer Timbaland also posted on Instagram, sharing a photo of Scoop with an MTV Moonman award, and the accompanying caption stating he is at a “loss for words” with a string of white dove emojis.
NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump on Friday said he will vote no on a Florida ballot measure that would repeal the state’s six-week abortion ban, a day after he seemed to indicate he would vote in favor of the measure.
Trump has said he thinks Florida’s ban is a mistake and said in an interview with Fox News Channel on Friday, “I think six weeks, you need more time.” But then he said, “at the same time, the Democrats are radical,” and he repeated false claims he has frequently made about late-term abortions and said that he opposed allowing abortions up until nine months.
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“So I’ll be voting no for that reason,” said Trump, who is registered to vote at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
The Florida ballot measure would legalize abortion until fetal viability, a term used by health care providers to describe whether a pregnancy is expected to continue developing normally or whether a fetus might survive outside the uterus. It’s generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks, which is about six months.
Trump drew backlash from abortion opponents who support him when he seemed to signal in another interview on Thursday that he would vote in favor of the ballot measure and repeal the six week ban when he said, “I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks.”
Amid the blowback his campaign quickly issued a statement saying that Trump had not actually said how he would vote but “simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short.”
Trump has held multiple conflicting positions on abortion over the years. After briefly considering backing a potential 15-week ban on the procedure nationwide, he announced in April that regulating abortion should be left to the states.
In the months since, he has repeatedly taken credit for his role in overturning Roe and called it “a beautiful thing to watch” as states set their own restrictions.
“Donald Trump just made his position on abortion very clear: He will vote to uphold an abortion ban so extreme it applies before many women even know they are pregnant,” Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic rival, said in a statement responding to Trump’s Friday comments.
NASA on Friday cut two astronauts from the next crew to make room on the return trip for the two stuck at the International Space Station.
NASA’s Nick Hague and Russian Aleksandr Gorbunov will launch in September aboard a SpaceX rocket for the orbiting laboratory. The duo will return with Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore in February. NASA decided it’s too risky for Williams and Wilmore to fly home in their Boeing Starliner capsule, marred by thruster troubles and helium leaks.
Bumped from the SpaceX flight: NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson. NASA said they could fly on future missions.
The space agency said it took into account spaceflight experience and other factors in making the decision.
After the shuttles retired, the U.S. relied on Russia to ferry crews to the space station until SpaceX began taking astronauts in 2020. The two countries have continued to trade seats. Next month, NASA’s Don Pettit will be launching to the space station while NASA’s Tracy Dyson will be returning to Earth on Russian capsules.
NASA turned to private businesses a decade ago, wanting two competing U.S. companies ferrying astronauts in the post-shuttle era.
Williams and Wilmore were Boeing’s first crew, arriving at the space station in June for what was supposed to be a weeklong stay. Their capsule will return empty as early as next Friday, aiming for a touchdown in the New Mexico desert.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A 2022 court hearing that freed Adnan Syed from prison violated the legal rights of the victim’s family and must be redone, Maryland’s Supreme Court ruled Friday, marking the latest development in the ongoing legal saga that gained global attention years ago through the hit podcast “Serial.”
The 4-3 ruling comes about 11 months after the court heard arguments last October in a case that has been fraught with legal twists and divided court rulings since Syed was convicted in 2000 of killing his high school ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee.
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The court concluded that in an effort to remedy what was perceived to be an injustice to Syed, prosecutors and a lower court “worked an injustice” against Lee’s brother, Young Lee. The court ruled that Lee was not treated with “dignity, respect, and sensitivity,” because he was not given reasonable notice of the hearing that resulted in Syed being freed.
The court ruled that the remedy was “to reinstate Mr. Syed’s convictions and to remand the case to the circuit court for further proceedings.”
“Those proceedings will go forward before a different circuit court judge,” the court ruled.
The court also said Lee would be afforded reasonable notice of the new hearing, “sufficient to provide Mr. Lee with a reasonable opportunity to attend such a hearing in person,” and for him or his counsel to be heard.
The latest issue in the case pitted recent criminal justice reform efforts against the legal rights of crime victims and their families, whose voices are often at odds with a growing movement to acknowledge and correct systemic issues, including historic racism, police misconduct and prosecutorial missteps.
The panel of seven judges weighed the extent to which crime victims have a right to participate in hearings where a conviction could be vacated. To that end, the court considered whether to uphold a lower appellate court ruling in 2023 in favor of the Lee family. It reinstated Syed’s murder conviction a year after a judge granted a request from Baltimore prosecutors to vacate it because of flawed evidence.
Syed, 43, has maintained his innocence and has often expressed concern for Lee’s surviving relatives. The teenage girl was found strangled to death and buried in an unmarked grave in 1999. Syed was sentenced to life in prison, plus 30 years.
Syed was released from prison in September 2022, when a Baltimore judge overturned his conviction after city prosecutors found flaws in the evidence.
However, in March 2023, the Appellate Court of Maryland, the state’s intermediate appellate court, ordered a redo of the hearing that won Syed his freedom and reinstated his conviction. The court said the victim’s family didn’t receive adequate notice to attend the hearing in person, violating their right under state law to be “treated with dignity and respect.”
Syed’s lawyer Erica Suter has argued that the state did meet its obligation by allowing Young Lee to participate in the hearing via video conference.
Syed appealed his conviction’s reinstatement, and the Lee family also appealed to the state’s highest court, contending that crime victims should be given a larger role in the process of vacating a conviction.
Syed has remained free as the latest set of appeals wind their way through the state court system.
During oral arguments last year, his attorneys argued the Lee family’s appeal was moot because prosecutors decided not to charge him again after his conviction was vacated. And even if her brother’s rights were violated, the attorneys argued, he hasn’t demonstrated whether the alleged violation would have changed the outcome of the hearing.
This wasn’t the first time Maryland’s highest court has taken up Syed’s protracted legal odyssey.
In 2019, a divided court ruled 4-3 to deny Syed a new trial. A lower court had ordered a retrial in 2016 on grounds that Syed’s attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, didn’t contact an alibi witness and provided ineffective counsel. Gutierrez died in 2004.
In November 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the decision by Maryland’s top court.
More recently, Baltimore prosecutors reexamined Syed’s files under a Maryland law targeting so-called “juvenile lifers” because he was 17 when Hae Min Lee’s body was found. Prosecutors uncovered numerous problems, including alternative suspects and the unreliable evidence presented at trial.
Instead of reconsidering his sentence, prosecutors filed a motion to vacate Syed’s conviction entirely. They later chose not to recharge him after receiving the results of DNA testing that was conducted using more modern testing techniques than initially conducted. DNA recovered from Lee’s shoes excluded Syed as a suspect, prosecutors said.
Syed’s case was chronicled in the “Serial” podcast, which debuted in 2014 and drew millions of listeners who became armchair detectives as the series analyzed the case. The show transformed the true-crime genre as it shattered podcast-streaming and downloading records, revealing little-known evidence and raising new questions about the case.
NHL player Johnny Gaudreau and his younger brother were killed Thursday night when they were hit by a suspected drunk driver while riding their bicycle in their home state of New Jersey, police said.
The 31-year-old Gaudreau and his younger brother, Matthew, 29, are Carneys Point, New Jersey, natives and were in the area for their sister Katie’s wedding scheduled for Friday in Philadelphia.
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According to New Jersey State police, the Gaudreau brothers were cycling on a road when a man driving in the same direction attempted to pass two other vehicles and struck them from behind. They were pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said the driver, Sean M. Higgins, was suspected of being under the influence of alcohol and charged with two counts of death by auto and jailed at the Salem County Correctional Facility.
Johnny Gaudreau, known as “Johnny Hockey,” has played 11 professional seasons in the league and was going into his third with the Blue Jackets. He played his first nine with the Calgary Flames, a tenure that included becoming one of the sport’s top players and a fan favorite across North America.
The Blue Jackets called it an unimaginable tragedy.
“Johnny was not only a great hockey player, but more significantly a loving husband, father, son, brother and friend,” the team said in a statement. “Johnny played the game with great joy which was felt by everyone that saw him on the ice. He brought a genuine love for hockey with him everywhere he played.”
Gaudreau, at 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds, was part of a generation of hockey players who thrived in an era of speed and skill that made being undersized less of a disadvantage. He scored 20-plus goals six times and was a 115-point player in 2021-22 as a first-time NHL All-Star when he had a career-best 40 goals and 75 assists.
“While Johnny’s infectious spirit for the game and show-stopping skills on the ice earned him the nickname ‘Johnny Hockey,’ he was more than just a dazzling hockey player; he was a doting father and beloved husband, son, brother and teammate who endeared himself to every person fortunate enough to have crossed his path,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. “We send our most heart-felt condolences to his wife Meredith; their children, Noa and Johnny; his parents, Guy and Jane; and sisters Kristen and Katie. And we grieve alongside his teammates, members of the Blue Jackets and Flames organizations, his many friends in hockey and countless fans around the world for whom he created indelible memories on and off the ice.”
A fourth-round pick of Calgary’s in 2011, Gaudreau helped Boston College win the NCAA championship in 2012 and in 2014 took home the Hobey Baker Award as the top college player in the country.
As a professional, Gaudreau finished was part of the NHL all-rookie team during his first season in the league and was third in voting for the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in 2014-15.
Gaudreau was a point-a-game player with 642 points in 644 regular-season and playoff games since breaking into the league. He most recently signed a seven-year contract in 2022 worth nearly $69 million that put him and his young family in central Ohio, closer to his family in New Jersey.
He holds the men’s world championship records by a U.S. player with 30 assists and 43 points, earlier this year breaking marks previously held by Patrick Kane.
Gaudreau’s death is the latest off-ice tragedy to strike the organization in the past few years. Goaltender Matiss Kivlenieks died in July 2021 when he was struck in the chest by a firework while attending the wedding of then-Blue Jackets goaltending coach Manny Legace’s daughter in Michigan.
Students are back on campus while university administrators are scrambling, lawsuits are flying, and the problems that caused rampant antisemitism last spring still have not been address. Both Presidential candidates promise to address antisemitism, but Jewish students on campus cannot afford to wait until the next President takes office in 2025. Congress needs to act now, in the narrow window before Congress goes on campaign break, to update their rules and regulations to better address antisemitism. Unfortunately, the politics of this vote create short-term problems for Democrats, who will have to answer whether confronting antisemitism is worth the political cost, a tough calculation two months before the election.
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Perhaps the most important power from having the majority in Congress is the ability to choose issues that unify your party while dividing the other. Less than 10% of Americans support a complete ban on abortion (JD Vance being one of them), one reason the Senate’s focus on reproductive rights makes political sense leading in to the election. Legislation to counter antisemitism, meanwhile, splits Democrats while uniting Republicans. The Antisemitism Awareness Act would put into law the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism when enforcing discrimination on campus: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” To illustrate how antisemitism manifests, IHRA provides several examples, including “[d]enying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” This law would allow the Department of Education to cut off federal funding to schools that tolerate antisemitism.
Some Democrats oppose this legislation because of concerns around free speech, academic freedom, and legitimate protests on campuses. Others disagree that these positions constitute antisemitism and argue this definition could be used to silence criticism of Israel amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. When the House voted in May to pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act (320-91), over one-third of Democrats voted against it while 90% of Republicans supported it. The Democratic-controlled Senate has failed to take up the legislation.
The political logic is clear: Taking a vote on this legislation could be taken as a proxy for sides in the Israel-Hamas conflict that divides Democratic voters, a divide that is especially sharp among younger liberal voters who are more likely to sympathize with Palestinians and are harder to bring to the polls, particularly in states such as Ohio and Montana, where incumbent Democratic Senators are in tough re-elections. For first time more Democratic voters sympathize with the Palestinians (49%) than with Israel (38%), while nearly 80% of Republicans stand with Israel. And looking at the broad question of support for the protests on college campuses, one poll found that Republicans opposed protests 69-16, while Democrats supported them 46-31 (the rest were uncertain). Independents broke with Republicans on the issue opposing the protests 44-24. This explains why Republicans are planning to make this an issue in swing Senate elections with a massive ad campaign.
I know what it’s like to pass a law that requires a tough vote before an election. I was the chief economist on the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee as the American banking system teetered on the edge of collapse in September 2008. Democrats and Republican leadership in Congress came to a deal with the Bush Administration, but that deal was voted down in the House when rank-and-file Republican members saw the unpopularity of the bailout bill coinciding with the upcoming election. But after the stock market fell almost 1,000 points, the Senate had one last chance to act before Congress went away to campaign. I was on the floor of the Senate when members stood at their desk to vote on the law that created the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) by a vote of 74-25. That strong, bipartisan vote sent the message and the House quickly passed the legislation.
Voting for TARP cost members of Congress their seat. Some lost in 2008, others in the 2010 midterm, when anger over the Wall Street bailouts inspired Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party revolts. But Democrats and Republicans who supported the legislation took that vote because they knew they had to act against the threat of financial catastrophe at home and across the globe.
While the issues are different, the history of financial crises shows that pretending a problem is contained and will go away on its own is a recipe for disaster. The history of antisemitism shows that it must be directly confronted.
The good news is that tackling antisemitism, unlike TARP, is overall politically popular. The Countering Antisemitism Act, introduced in both chambers with bipartisan support, seeks the same objective as the Antisemitism Awareness Act but through establishing a national coordinator to combat antisemitism, requiring the Department of Education to coordinate strategy to counter antisemitism in higher education without using the IHRA definition of antisemitism. But even this legislation, while not as proscriptive and generally preferred among Democrats, could be used by some on the far left as a proxy vote on the conflict in the Middle East and could drive down enthusiasm among a small but important share of the Democratic Party base.
Jewish students are returning to college campuses rightfully concerned after the events of last school year. While some are suing their university to protect them, a sad statement on the failure of leadership at those institutions, only Congress can change federal law in a way that brings Uncle Sam’s strength to bear against the growing antisemitism taking hold on campuses. That is what both the Antisemitism Awareness Act and The Countering Antisemitism Act do. While the former is less popular among Democrats, they seem reluctant to take up even the more widely supported option out of fear of weighing in on a contentious issue so close to the election. This despite the fact that if Majority Leader Chuck Schumer put either bill to a vote, it would probably pass. It is critical that Senate pass antisemitism legislation to move the legislative process forward and allow the House and Senate to work through a final compromise that could be another part of President Joe Biden’s legacy, which has included wise leadership during this war between Israel and Hamas.
Will the Senate prioritize addressing antisemitism even if doing so harms some members election prospects? Soaring increases in antisemitic acts have caused a level of fear among Jews not seen in America in my lifetime. I hope that Senate leadership stands as strong now to combat antisemitism as it did then to combat financial panic.
As the nights begin to draw in and the air gets crispier, the compulsion to nestle under a blanket with your TV remote gets harder to ignore. And while we’d never sneer at the impulse to rewatch Gilmore Girls for the 20th time at the first sign of leaves turning orange, fall is undeniably the best time of year for new TV.
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There are brand new shows that already have our tongues wagging, like Netflix’s The Perfect Couple with Nicole Kidman and Grotesquerie, a Ryan Murphy’ project featuring the NFL’s Travis Kelce. There are spin-offs from established franchises, like Marvel’s Agatha All Along and The Penguin. There are returning favorites like The Sex Lives of College Girls and Slow Horses. And shows bidding their final farewells like Cobra Kai and What We Do In the Shadows..
With so many titles vying for your attention, we’ve narrowed down the list of all the best shows coming your way this fall.
Brand new
English Teacher (FX)
Sept. 2
If you’ve spent any time scrolling your phone over the last year, you’ve probably caught yourself chuckling at one of Brian Jordan Alvarez’s carousel of characters. There’s TJ Mack, the devoted husband who can’t stop singing about his wife; Rick, the Aussie good-time guy with a penchant for “lifting heaps,” and The Studempt, a vaguely European, vaguely So-Cal student with zero problems—each defined by their own janky Instagram face filter. Now, he’s got another character to introduce us to. The English Teacher, created by and starring Alvarez, follows a young teacher navigating the world of public high school education. And if you’re wondering, there are no face filters for this one.
A heist on the biggest fight night of the year? The conceit is a classic plot device for a reason. Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, based on the 2020 podcast from IHeartPodcasts, tells the story of how Muhammed Ali’s 1970 return to boxing in Atlanta went from the biggest bout in the world into one of the biggest thefts in the world. The show has assembled a who’s who of iconic actors—from Samuel L. Jackson and Don Cheadle to a reunion for Hustle & Flow stars Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson. It also features Kevin Hart in a rare dramatic-leaning role.
The Perfect Couple (Netflix)
Sept. 5
Nicole Kidman seems determined to dip her toe into every streaming service with a glossy, prestige series. After appearing on HBO, Amazon Prime, BBC, and Hulu, she’s now heading to Netflix for The Perfect Couple. Kidman, who plays the matriarch of an extremely wealthy Nantucket family married to Liev Schrieber, becomes suspicious of her son’s fiancée, played by Eve Hewson. On the eve of the wedding, a body is discovered on the beach, and soon, all the family secrets buried by power, money, and NDAs start to bubble to the surface.
Three Women (Starz)
Sept. 13
Three Women has had a long road to the screen, but the adaptation of the best-selling nonfiction book by Lisa Taddeo is finally coming our way this fall. It tells the story of, you guessed it, three women, each with separate stories but with unexpected commonalities. There’s Lina, played by Betty Gilpin, a stay-at-home mom having an affair; Sloane, a successful woman navigating a happy open marriage with her husband; and Maggie, a student who accuses her English teacher of an inappropriate relationship. Their stories are told by a character played by Shailene Woodley, a proxy for the author who travels the country in a beat-up van looking for inspiration.
How to Die Alone (Hulu)
Sept. 13
Before popping up again in The White Lotus next year, Natasha Rothwell stars in How to Die Alone, a series she also created. The comedy follows a disillusioned woman who has never been in love and is coasting through her days as a bored airport worker but, after a brush with death, decides to grab life by the collar and stop letting experiences pass her by.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (Netflix)
Sept. 19
After striking awards gold with the true crime series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Ryan Murphy is back for a second installment of his controversial anthology franchise for a trip to the ‘90s with the Menendez Brothers. The series stars Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch as Lyle and Erik, the nouveau riche brothers convicted of killing their parents, played by Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny, for a slice of their multimillion-dollar fortune. The trial became one of the biggest media storms of the decade, and if there’s one thing Ryan Murphy knows how to recreate, thanks to his American Crime Story franchise, it’s juicy courtroom drama.
Grotesquerie (FX)
Sept. 25
Murders, gruesome religious imagery, demonic gore, Niecy Nash-Betts—yep, it’s another Ryan Murphy extravaganza. Grotesquerie finds Murphy back in his early American Horror Story mode with this horror drama about a detective and a nun trying to solve a series of, well, grotesque satanic murders in an ominous small town. The trailer gives little away about the actual plot, but it does leave you with that instantly recognisable Murphy shiver up your spine. Oh, the trailer also gives us one second of Travis Kelce—yes, that Travis Kelce—in his actor era.
Nobody Wants This (Netflix)
Sept. 26
Great news for everyone who was radicalized by Seth Cohen on The OC in the early 2000s and has spent the last 20 years wishing Adam Brody would be in every TV show and film ever made—he’s starring in the new Netflix series Nobody Wants This. And if that wasn’t enough, it’s a rom-com too! It follows the unexpected odd-couple relationship between a rabbi and an agnostic woman. The show, created by multi-hyphenate funny woman Erin Foster, and inspired by her own life, also stars Kristen Bell and Veep’s Timothy Simons.
Social Studies (FX)
Sept. 27
Plenty of documentaries have been made about high school students navigating the throes of adolescence through the decades. In Social Studies, the lens is firmly on the role technology and the internet plays in the lives of this current crop of teenagers. Having grown up entirely with the internet within arms reach (no big computers in the family room here), the series looks at how constant access to the world of internet trends, beauty standards, and 24/7 news access is affecting kids on the precipice of adulthood in L.A.
The Franchise (HBO)
October TBA
Armando Iannucci has taken a satirical sledgehammer to the world of politics, in Veep and The Thick of It; history (The Death of Stalin) and journalism (I’m Alan Partridge). Now, he’s aiming at the world of movie-making—specifically, superhero movie-making. The Franchise, which is co-created by director Sam Mendes, follows the production of a big-budget Hollywood and all the issues that arise when you bring together a bunch of actors in spandex tights. We’re already dreading and craving the discourse in equal measure.
Disclaimer (Apple TV+)
Oct. 11
Beyond a couple of small roles in shows at the start of the decade, Cate Blanchett is a rare Hollywood A-lister who has mostly ignored the lure of prestige TV. Until now. In the psychological thriller Disclaimer, Blanchett stars as a journalist who discovers she is a prominent part of a new novel, and it exposes a secret she’s been trying to keep hidden. In typical Apple TV+ fashion, the producers roped in a celebrated auteur behind the camera, Alfonso Cuarón, which probably goes some of the way to explaining why Blanchett is finally taking the TV plunge. The show also stars Kevin Kline.
Before (Apple TV+)
Oct. 25
Billy Crystal is shedding his comedy persona for this delve into the world of psychological thrillers with Before, a series he is executive producing for Apple TV+. In it, he stars as Eli, a child psychiatrist who, after losing his wife, works with a troubled young boy who seems to have some kind of ominous connection to his past. The series also stars Rosie Perez and Judith Light as Crystal’s late wife.
A Man on the Inside (Netflix)
November TBA
Four years after wrapping up their afterlife comedy The Good Place, Ted Danson and Mike Schur are teaming up again. The series is based on the Oscar-nominated documentary The Mole Agent, and follows a retiree who answers an ad to become a mole in a secret investigation inside a retirement home. There will be a handful of familiar faces returning from the wider Schur-iverse, like Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Stephanie Beatriz and The Good Place’s Marc Evan Jackson.
Say Nothing (FX/Hulu)
Nov. 14
In recent years, we’ve had a handful of shows that have touched on the still-open wound of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. While Derry Girls and the recent Netflix series Bodkin gave them a comedic touch, Say Nothing is a murder mystery set against the backdrop of 40 years of unrest. The series, based on Patrick Radden Keefe’s award-winning 2019 nonfiction book, opens with the disappearance of a single mother in 1972, and spans the decades since as the story slowly unfolds.
Landman (Paramount+)
Nov. 17
The Taylor Sheridan TV industrial complex shows no signs of slowing down. After the enormous success of Yellowstone and its spin-offs 1883 and 1923, as well as Tulsa King and Mayor of Kingstown, Sheridan is back with Landman, a series based on the podcast Boomtown about Texas’ oil industry. Billy Bob Thornton will be bringing his Southern drawl to the upstairs-downstairs style series as a crisis executive at an oil company.
Interior Chinatown (Hulu)
Nov. 19
Charles Yu’s award-winning 2020 novel Interior Chinatown is coming to the small screen, with Yu as showrunner. The story follows Willis Wu, played in the series by comedian Jimmy O. Yang, a struggling character actor idling away in background TV work who finds himself in the spotlight after witnessing a crime in Chinatown. While navigating newfound fame, he also investigates and ends up uncovering a web of secrets beneath the vibrant neighborhood’s lights.
Senna (Netflix)
Nov. 29
Back in 2010, Asif Kapadia released his critically acclaimed documentary about the life of Brazilian race car legend Ayrton Senna. Now, Senna is getting the drama treatment in a new series that follows his racing roots from the beginning of his career to his death at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. The show was made in partnership with Senna’s family, who’ve promised there will be elements of his story that have never been heard before. Senna is played by Gabriel Leone, who is something of an old hand when it comes to playing Formula 1 drivers—he was last seen as Spanish driver Alfonso de Portago in Michael Mann’s Ferrari.
Returning
Slow Horses Season 4 (Apple TV+)
Sept. 4
The initial buzz for Slow Horses was, well, slow. But as it enters its fourth season, just about everyone who has seen it shouts that it’s the best show on TV right now. The comedic British spy thriller stars Gary Oldman and is based on a series of novels by writer Mick Herron which follow the happenings of the agents of Slough House, a purgatory for MI5 agents who haven’t been fired but have been left to waste away in administrative boredom. Already greenlit for a fifth outing, this season will delve further into the backstories of Slough House’s residents.
Selling Sunset Season 8 (Netflix)
Sept. 6
More multimillion-dollar houses, more intra-office drama in the Oppenheimer Group, more nonsensical transition music and more completely inappropriate outfits for work. What else can be said about Selling Sunset Season 8?
The Old Man Season 2 (Hulu)
Sept. 12
Jeff Bridges is back as the titular old man, although that moniker isn’t as mean as it sounds. He stars as a former CIA agent who finds himself on the run after killing an intruder in his home. Part Taken, part The Odd Couple, The Old Man’s second season sees Bridges and co-star John Lithgow attempt to save an FBI protege, played by Alia Shawcat, from the clutches of a terrorist warlord in Afghanistan.
Emily in Paris, Season 4 Part 2 (Netflix)
Sept. 12
Yes, she’s still in Paris. Emily’s latest escapades on the continent kicked off in August and, in typical Netflix fashion, will return for its second part this fall. Part 1 was a rollercoaster, with workplace assault allegations, false pregnancy tests and three seasons of sexual tension bubbling over, but Part 2 seems to suggest things could be looking up for everyone’s favorite (or not) social media guru.
It’s officially autumn when those animated Heartstopper leaves pop up on our screens again. The sickly-sweet teen series that follows the adolescent romance of Nick and Charlie and their web of queer friends is back for a third season. While its first two outings were cup mug-of-hot-chocolate levels of comforting, its third outing promises to be a bit darker, as themes like anxiety, eating disorders, and parental abandonment made their way into the last few episodes.
The Diplomat’s first season ended on an explosive cliffhanger. The show follows the trials of the new U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom (Keri Russell) as she balances her tumultuous relationship with her ambitious husband (Rufus Sewell) while fending off basically every international disaster known to man, including a conspiracy that threatens to detonate geopolitics forever. Allison Janney is heading back to her The West Wing roots as she joins the second season.
The Sex Lives of College Girls Season 3 (Max)
November TBA
Mindy Kaling’s The Sex Lives of College Girls was one of those Max shows fans were scared would get the chop after its second season, but thankfully, it lives to see another day. Still, it’s not without its casualties. The show, about a group of freshmen navigating college life, stars Amrit Kaur, Alyah Chanelle Scott, Pauline Chalamet and Renée Rapp. Rapp, however, announced a few months back that she will only be returning for a handful of episodes this season before departing for good to focus on her exploding music career instead. But as anyone who experienced college will tell you, you don’t need long to make good-bad decisions!
Bad Sisters Season 2 (Apple TV+)
Nov. 13
Bad Sisters was originally intended as a standalone mini-series, but when everyone went crazy for the Irish dark comedy, producers (and co-creator and star Sharon Horgan) quickly got working on a story for season 2. The first season followed five sisters embroiled in an insurance investigation into the death of one of their abusive husbands. One of them did murder him, but the sleuths can never find that out! The second season will jump ahead two years, and while the sisters may have moved on with their lives, past truths come to light and throw them back into chaos together.
Spin-offs
American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez (FX)
Sept. 17
If there’s a shocking American story dripping in tragedy and public scandal, you best believe Ryan Murphy will be there adapting it for the screen. As an offshoot of his American Crime Story franchise, American Sports Story will kick off with the story of Aaron Hernandez, the NFL player convicted of the murder of his sister-in-law’s fiancé. Rather than land us in the courtroom, the series, which stars Josh Andrés Rivera, will dissect the power of football in American culture and the tragedy of Hernandez’s place in it, especially regarding the brain-altering CTE he was found to suffer from posthumously.
Agatha All Along (Disney+)
Sept. 18
After more than a handful of name changes, it really was Agatha All Along. The breakout star of Marvel’s pandemic sensation WandaVision, Katherine Hahn plays Agatha Harkness who, after managing to escape Wanda’s simulated town of Westview, has to face the trials of the Witches’ Road with the help of a ragtag new coven of witches. The series co-stars the legendary Broadway star Patti Lupone, as well as Aubrey Plaza and Heartstopper’s Joe Locke.
The Penguin (HBO)
Sept. 19
While it’s still up in the air whether we’ll get another Robert Pattinson-led Batman after his 2022 outing, the Bat universe is being kept alive by Colin Farrell in a heaping pile of prosthetics. Farrell showed up as the legendary gangster Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot in Matt Reeves’ film, and this spin-off will dig deeper into his origins in the festering underbelly of Gotham.
Dune: Prophecy (HBO)
November TBA
Are Dune’s Bene Gesserit a group of ladies we’d like to get spicy margs with after work? Not really. But they are arguably the most compelling aspect of the epic’s sprawling universe we only get a glimpse of in Denis Villeneuve’s big-screen adaptations. Dune: Prophecy tracks the powerful sisterhood’s origins 10,000 years before the events of the film. It will follow the Bene Gesserit’s founding sisters Valya and Tula Harkonnen, who establish a lineage of women who obtain superhuman abilities to influence humanity for centuries to come, and stars Emily Watson and Olivia Williams.
Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2
Nov. 10
The linchpin in the Taylor Sheridan small-screen cinematic universe is set to conclude this fall…maybe. After a great deal of reported drama behind the scenes, the hugely popular Kevin Costner-led epic was widely assumed to be ending, though earlier this week Deadline reported that stars Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser are negotiating a sixth season.
Final seasons
My Brilliant Friend Season 4 (HBO)
Sept. 9
HBO’s adaptation of Elena Farrante’s best selling series of novels has picked up a devoted set of fervent fans since it launched in 2018. The Italian story follows Lila and Lenù from coming-of-age teenagers to middle-aged women, tracing the ups and downs of their friendship as their lives diverge into adulthood. The fourth season will be its last and will wrap up in the 1980s.
What We Do in the Shadows Season 6 (FX)
Oct. 21
Nothing can live forever, not even immortal vampires who’ve been walking the earth for hundreds of years. The fan favorite What We Do in the Shadows, the spin-off to the indie darling film made by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement in 2014, is closing its Staten Island doors for the final time with its sixth season. While most of the plot is under wraps, the final season will make good on wrapping up the quest of Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) to find his place in the world of darkness.
Somebody Somewhere Season 3 (HBO)
Oct. 27
Somebody Somewhere is a love letter to community. The series follows Sam, played by Bridget Everett, who moves home to small-town Kansas after the death of her sister and has to help her alcoholic mother and struggling father. It’s not a barrel of laughs but it drips with sweet, sentimental humour as Sam finds her people amidst the fog of her concerns.
Cobra Kai Season 6, Part 2 of 3 (Netflix)
Nov. 15
Netflix has made a habit of splitting its shows into two parts for the past few years, but with the sixth and final season of Cobra Kai, it has gone the extra mile by eking it out into three chunks. The first installment of the series kicked off in July and then its final episodes will drop in 2025. The show, which has been streaming since 2018, is a sequel to the iconic The Karate Kid (1984) and brought together classic film enemies Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, played by Ralph Macchio and William Zabka.
For the second time in two years, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern. Mpox didn’t disappear in between the two outbreaks, but the WHO’s new announcement signals that it is again becoming a significant concern for global health.
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Right now, the mpox outbreak is concentrated in Africa, where the virus has long been endemic in certain areas. The illness is particularly prevalent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), but countries including Burundi, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and the Central African Republic also have cases. Sweden and Thailand have each reported a travel-associated case linked to the outbreak.
Currently, the WHO says risk to people in other parts of the world is “moderate.” Here’s what to know about mpox in 2024.
How is this outbreak different from 2022?
The current outbreak is more complicated than what the world experienced two years ago, says Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease physician who worked on the WHO’s mpox response during the 2022 outbreak.
That outbreak was linked to one clade (or strain) of the virus: clade 2b. That clade never went away completely, but many countries were able to contain its spread. Now, cases linked to clade 2b continue to be diagnosed in many places, while countries in Central and Eastern Africa are also reporting cases related to another strain, known as clade 1. Some countries, including the DRC, have also seen cases resulting from a recently identified subvariant of clade 1, labeled clade 1b. “We’re still learning about this new variant,” Kuppalli says.
Health authorities including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say clade 1 tends to be more severe than clade 2b, and some estimates have placed the new clade 1b’s case fatality rate as high as 6%. But research findings released in August suggests clade 1 has a lower mortality rate than experts initially thought—around 1.7%—when patients receive adequate medical care. A small study published in Nature Medicine in June also found that about 1.4% of patients infected with the new variant died. Kuppalli says emerging reports from the region suggest the rate may be even lower, around 0.7%, which is encouraging.
How is mpox spreading?
When someone has mpox, they often have flu-like symptoms before developing a blister-like rash. They are considered contagious until the rash has fully healed, according to the CDC.
Mpox is often transmitted through direct skin-to-skin contact with someone who is infected. But it can also spread via exposure to infected animals, contact with a sick person’s bodily fluids, or from a pregnant person to their fetus, the CDC says.
During the 2022 outbreak, sexual contact among men who have sex with men was a major driver of spread worldwide. Sexual contact is still contributing to a high percentage of cases, according to the WHO. But during the current outbreak in Africa, the virus also seems to be spreading through non-sexual forms of person-to-person contact, the agency says. Children have been disproportionately affected in the DRC—predominantly with the original clade 1 strain, which is known to affect kids, Kuppalli says.
Reasons for shifting transmission patterns are “probably multifactorial,” she says. Possible reasons include decreased population-wide immunity since people are no longer routinely vaccinated against smallpox (which is similar to mpox), changes to the virus itself, increasing spillover from animals, or the prevalence of compounding health problems—like other infections or malnutrition—that make people more vulnerable. There also seems to be some animal-related transmission occurring in the DRC, according to CDC research.
Are mpox rates going up in the U.S.?
As of Aug. 22, the U.S. had not identified any cases linked to clade 1 mpox. But cases related to the strain that caused the 2022 outbreak continue to be diagnosed. “People forgot mpox was still here,” says Dr. Jason Zucker, an infectious disease physician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. “Even though mpox left the news and we thought about it a lot less, that doesn’t mean it actually went away.”
More than 1,700 mpox cases have been reported in the U.S. so far this year, according to preliminary CDC data. That’s far lower than during the initial outbreak, when more than 30,000 cases were diagnosed from 2022 into the first half of 2023.
Even with clade 2b continuing to spread, Zucker says he’s optimistic that cases will not rise anywhere close to as high as they previously did. Mpox’s spread in 2022 was unexpected, leaving laboratories, physicians, and public-health systems scrambling to catch up. Now, Zucker says, people with symptoms are more seamlessly diagnosed, tested, and treated, and vaccines are available for those who need them.
Should I get vaccinated?
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends mpox vaccination only for people with certain risk factors, such as men who have or expect to have multiple male sexual partners. With risk of transmission currently low for the general U.S. public, “there’s no reason right now for anyone who’s not in vulnerable populations to be running out to get a vaccine,” Zucker says.
Researchers are still determining whether existing mpox vaccines will work against the new clade. There’s not much real-world data available yet, but there’s good reason to think they will, says Alessandro Sette, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Innovation at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. The currently used shots work against both smallpox and mpox, which suggests they have fairly broad efficacy, Sette says. Pox viruses also tend to mutate less dramatically than viruses like SARS-CoV-2 and influenza, he says.
Kuppalli says it’s also important to scale up surveillance, testing, and high-quality medical treatment on the ground. “The focus really needs to be on where the outbreak is happening right now, which is in Africa,” she says. “In some cases, that [fact] has been lost a little bit.”
Responding to pressure from conservative groups threatening “anti-woke” boycotts, Jack Daniel’s parent company, Brown-Forman, recently announced that it would end workforce and supplier diversity goals and no longer participate in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, citing shifts in the “legal and external landscape.”
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My connection to Jack Daniel goes back to a very different era—one defined by the man himself, Jack Daniel, and the inclusive environment he created at his distillery in the 19th century. The legacy I want to highlight is about his commitment to inclusion and equity, which Jack Daniel, the man, fostered in an improbable time and place: the post-Civil War South, just minutes from the Alabama border. His values of inclusion became a cornerstone of the distillery’s early success and were carried forward by his descendants well into the 20th century.
Jack Daniel’s approach to inclusion was groundbreaking for its time. In the heart of the rural South, where racial division was the norm, Jack Daniel built a distillery where half of his workforce was African American, even though African Americans made up less than 20% of the population in Lynchburg, Tenn. The jobs at Jack Daniel Distillery were some of the most coveted in the area, and it was known that Jack hired based on merit, not race, drawing African Americans from surrounding towns. His fair treatment of workers created an environment where diversity wasn’t just accepted but sought after. Jack Daniel may not have been able to address the systemic or structural issues of the time, but he led with his heart, creating a culture of inclusion that was not only morally right but good for business.
What made Jack Daniel’s commitment to equality even more remarkable was his humanity beyond the distillery. Upon his death, thousands of unpaid loan notes were found in his possession—debts owed by people of all backgrounds, races, and walks of life. His will was clear: not a single debt was to be collected. Jack Daniel understood that everyone needs a helping hand at some point, and his generosity showed his belief in giving without expecting anything in return.
The fact that Jack Daniel Distillery was able to recover and thrive after Prohibition when so many other Tennessee distilleries closed their doors permanently can be attributed, in part, to the diversity Jack Daniel built into the fabric of his company. By pulling from a wide pool of talent and perspectives, Jack Daniel Distillery had the agility and strength to rebuild when others could not. It is this legacy of inclusion—initiated by Jack Daniel, the man, and continued by his family—that I have built upon at Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey.
At the heart of that legacy is Nearest Green, the African American distilling genius who became Jack Daniel’s first master distiller. Nearest Green taught Jack Daniel the craft of distilling, and the two men formed a bond that was much more than business: Nearest Green was a mentor and a father figure to Jack. After Nearest Green retired, his son, George Green, continued working with Jack as his right-hand man, further embedding the Green family’s legacy into the foundation of the distillery.
Jack Daniel, the man, offers a model for the type of DEI we need today. Jack Daniel didn’t need mandates or quotas to treat people equitably. His workforce at the distillery was diverse long before it was required by law. The fact that Jack Daniel was able to foster inclusion in the heart of the South, during an era when such practices were virtually unheard of, is a testament to the strength of his character and the values he lived by. This is the spirit of inclusion that guided Jack Daniel in his day, and it’s the spirit that guides Uncle Nearest now.
As we discuss DEI today, it feels like we’re losing the plot. It shouldn’t be an either/or debate—it’s a matter of “and.” Women and people of color make up 70% of the population, and we are essential to the workforce. But we don’t want special treatment; we want equality—equal pay and equal opportunities.
To understand the backlash against DEI programs, we must acknowledge that the American Dream has eluded many. Often those who don’t fit the typical narrative of disenfranchisement. As we talk about DEI, it’s time to expand the conversation to include socioeconomic status and geography. True diversity and equity must embrace a broader vision of inclusion—one that acknowledges those who struggle regardless of race. It is worth noting that around one in five African Americans live in poverty in the U.S., equaling about 8.5 million people—a disproportionate share of the American population. It is also vital to recognize the 15 million white Americans living in poverty.
I don’t believe most opponents of DEI programs are against diversity, equity, or inclusion. Their issue is with how DEI is currently being positioned. So the question becomes: how do we address historic injustices without creating new ones? Consider this: women in the United States still earn, on average, just 82 cents for every dollar earned by men, while Black women earn only 64 cents. Similarly, Black workers earn just 76 cents for every dollar earned by white workers, regardless of education or occupation. These disparities are not just statistics; they represent real people, people who continue to be left behind in a country that prides itself on equality of opportunity. To those who question DEI in its current form, I implore and challenge you: will you help us move toward equality? Help us find a better path forward.
Jack Daniel gave us the answer long ago: treat everyone with equality, uplift those who are struggling, and help those who need it most. If people want to scrap the term DEI, fine. But let’s not lose sight of the goal: equality. Maybe some current programs aren’t the answer, but what is? If we can’t answer that, dismantling what we have only takes us back to a time when inequality was the rule of the land.
