Tech company ceo resigns after controversy over video captured at coldplay concert
Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently that standard was not met,' the company said in its post on LinkedIn.
The move comes a day after the company said that Byron had been placed on leave and the board of directors had launched a formal investigation into the incident, which went viral. A short video clip from Coldplay's concert Wednesday at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, showed a man and a woman cuddling and smiling, his arms wrapped around her as she leaned back into him. When they saw themselves on the big screen, her jaw dropped, her hands flew to her face, and she spun away from the camera. He ducked out of the frame, as did she. Lead singer Chris Martin had asked the cameras to scan the crowd for his 'Jumbotron Song,' when he sings a few lines about the people the camera lands on. 'Either they're having an affair, or they're just very shy,' he joked. Internet sleuths identified the man as the chief executive officer of a US-based company and the woman as its chief people officer. Pete DeJoy, Astronomer's cofounder and chief product officer, has been tapped as interim CEO while the company conducts a search for Byron's successor.
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Al Arabiya
15 minutes ago
- Al Arabiya
‘Happy Gilmore' became a cult comedy. 29 years later, Adam Sandler is swinging again
Happy Gilmore was born on the range. When Adam Sandler was a kid growing up in New Hampshire, his father was an avid golfer. He'd often take his son along to hit balls at the driving range. But Sandler was uninterested in the sport and usually got antsy. 'Why don't you bring a friend?' his dad told him. So Sandler took his buddy Kyle McDonough, a star hockey player who'd later turn professional. 'He never played before, but he was cracking the ball so far,' Sandler recalls. 'So when I started becoming a comedian and me and (Tim) Herlihy were writing stuff and stand-up and talking about movies, I started thinking about a guy who could hit it really big and had a hockey player mentality.' Happy Gilmore, released in 1996, was Sander and Herlihy's second movie following Billy Madison. Sandler was just exiting Saturday Night Live. Herlihy was Sandler's roommate at New York University and became a lawyer before Sandler got him to stick to writing comedy. (You might remember the Herlihy Boy sketch.) 'We had just done our first movie, Billy Madison, and we put every idea we ever had for a movie in that movie,' says Herlihy. 'So when they said we could do another movie, it was like, What are we going to do this movie about?' Happy Gilmore, released in February 1996, became one of the most beloved comedies of the 90s and codified the hockey-style swing as a mainstay on golf courses. A hop, skip, and a hit, as Sandler says. The movie also made comic heroes of Bob Barker, Christopher McDonald, and Carl Weathers and made lines like 'Are you too good for your home?' plausible things to ask golf balls. Like most cult comedies, Happy Gilmore didn't start out an obvious instant classic though. 'A one-joke Caddyshack for the blitzed and jaded,' wrote EW. 'To describe Happy's antics as boorish is putting it mildly,' wrote The New York Times. 'Happy Gilmore tells the story of a violent sociopath,' wrote Roger Ebert. He called it the latest in the 'dumber and dumbest' sweepstakes. Happy Gilmore was a box-office success, grossing 39 million in the US and Canada. And through worn-out DVDs and regular TV reruns, it became a favorite to generations of golfers and a staple of goofy 90s comedy. 'I can't even tell you how many times I've seen that movie,' says the actor-filmmaker Benny Safdie, who co-directed Sandler in Uncut Gems. 'It was on an endless loop. I had the DVD, and I just kept watching it. I can close my eyes and see the movie end to end. It's one of my favorite movies.' Now, nearly three decades later, and after years of batting away pleas for a sequel, Sandler has finally put Happy's Bruins jersey back on. Happy Gilmore 2, which Netflix will debut Friday, is arguably the most anticipated streaming release of the summer. Avoiding a comedy sequel curse, Sandler was well aware of the checkered history of comedy sequels. Movies like Zoolander 2 and Anchorman 2 have struggled to recapture the freewheeling spirit of the originals. The movie Sandler counts as his favorite—Caddyshack–so much so that he was initially hesitant to make a golf comedy–spawned 1988's woebegone Caddyshack II. 'If someone brought it up to us, we were like, Yeah, no, we're not going to do that,' Sandler said in a recent interview alongside Herlihy. 'There was no moment we went Aha. It just kind of happened. The last couple years, we were talking about Happy and how it might be funny if he was down and out.' In Happy Gilmore 2, co-written by Sandler and Herlihy, Happy is a decorated retired golfer with four sons and a daughter (played by Sandler's daughter Sunny Sandler). But after a tragic incident and falling on hard times, he's lured back into golf. This time, though, Happy is an insider motivated to protect the sport. Safdie co-stars as the founder of Maxi Golf, a new circus-like tour with long hitters. 'We thought it could be fun to write something like that,' says Sandler. 'It kind of connected to our lives and this age and wanting to make a full-on comedy. There's nothing better than dropping a comedy and trying to make people laugh to us. It feels like why we originally got into this business. Big broad comedies have grown almost extinct in the decades since Happy Gilmore. Returning to that style of comedy was for Sandler and Herlihy the best reason to make the sequel. For the 58-year-old friends and regular collaborators, it was a chance to riff like they used to. 'We were outlining the story together, and then we were like, We should watch the first one again, man,' Sandler says. 'We're going off of our memory of so many things, hanging out with Carl Weathers and Bob Barker and all that stuff. Then we watched it, and we were like, Oh yeah. It was a tone.' 'It made a little more sense than Billy Madison,' says Herlihy, 'but we weren't afraid to swing, swing, swing.' A supporting cast of PGA winners. Cameos, of course, were a major part of Happy Gilmore. (The Bob Barker scene was originally written for Ed McMahon.) In the years since, many of the faces of the original have died, including Barker, Weathers, Frances Bay, the hulking Richard Kiel, and Joe Flaherty, who played the heckler. Even the golf ball-stealing alligator Morris has passed on. Happy Gilmore 2, unusually elegiac for a proudly silly comedy, nods to all of them. For the sequel, many others like Travis Kelce and Margaret Qualley were lining up to be a part of it. So were pro golfers. Just about all the big names in golf, including several legends, appear. The day after winning Sunday's British Open, Scottie Scheffler flew to New York for the premiere. Over the years, Herlihy and Sandler have seen a lot of them try the Happy Gilmore. 'I feel like when these golfers try to do it–these pros–they're 5 percent thinking, Maybe this will work,' says Herlihy, laughing. 'I played with Bryson (DeChambeau) like a week ago, and when he did it, it was ridiculous,' adds Sandler. 'He literally blasted it 360 and just kept walking. I was like, Did he just smash the Happy Gilmore and not even think about it?' It's possible that the Happy Gilmore will even outlive the movies. There's a good chance that even as you read this, somewhere some kid is trying it, hoping to get a laugh and maybe get it on the fairway too. 'When we were putting it together, I called my dad and asked him if it was legal. He was like, I don't see why not,' Sandler remembers. Then there are some people who look at it and go: It does help you swing hard. It gives you more momentum. You turn your hips faster. Maybe it's a good thing.
Asharq Al-Awsat
7 hours ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
‘The Osbournes' Changed Ozzy's Image from Grisly to Cuddly, and Changed Reality TV
There was Ozzy before "The Osbournes" and Ozzy after "The Osbournes." For much of his life, the Black Sabbath founder and legendary heavy metal frontman who died at 76 on Tuesday was known to much of the public as a dark purveyor of deeds. Wild stories followed him. Clergy condemned him. Parents sued him. But with the debut of his family reality show on MTV, the world learned what those who'd been paying closer attention already knew: Ozzy Osbourne was soft and fuzzy under the darkness. During its relatively short run from 2002 to 2005, "The Osbournes" became a runaway hit and made stars of his wife Sharon and kids Jack and Kelly. But more than that, it made a star of the domesticated version of Ozzy Osbourne, and in the process changed reality TV. In 2025, when virtually every variety of celebrity has had a reality show, it's hard to see what a novelty the series was. MTV sold it as television's first "reality sitcom." "Just the idea of the Black Sabbath founder, who will forever be known for biting the head off a bat during a 1982 concert, as a family man seems strange," Associated Press Media Writer David Bauder wrote on the eve of "The Osbournes" premiere. But on the show, Osbourne was "sweetly funny — and under everything a lot like the put-upon dads you've been seeing in television sitcoms for generations." Danny Deraney, a publicist who worked with Osbourne and was a lifelong fan, said of the show, "You saw some guy who was curious. You saw some guy who was being funny. You just saw pretty much the real thing." "He's not the guy that everyone associates with the 'Prince of Darkness' and all this craziness," Deraney said. "And people loved him. He became so affable to so many people because of that show. As metal fans, we knew it. We knew that's who he was. But now everyone knew." Reality shows at the time, especially the popular competition shows like "Survivor," thrived on heightened circumstances. For "The Osbournes," no stakes were too low. They sat on the couch. They ate dinner. The now-sober Ozzy sipped Diet Cokes, and urged his kids not to indulge in alcohol or drugs when they went out. He struggled to find the History Channel on his satellite TV. They feuded with the neighbors because, of all things, their loud music was driving the Osbournes crazy. "You were seeing this really fascinating, appealing, bizarre tension between the public persona of a celebrity and their mundane experiences at home," said Kathryn VanArendonk, a critic for Vulture and New York Magazine. The sitcom tone was apparent from its first moments. "You turn on this show and you get this like little jazzy cover theme song of the song 'Crazy Train,' and there's all these bright colors and fancy editing, and we just got to see this like totally 180-degree different side of Ozzy which was just surprising and incredible to watch," said Nick Caruso, staff editor at TVLine. Like family sitcoms, the affection its leads clearly had for each other was essential to its appeal. "For some reason, we kind of just fell in love with them the same way that we grew to love Ozzy and Sharon as like a marital unit," Caruso said. What was maybe strangest about the show was how not-strange it felt. The two Ozzies seemed seamless rather than contradictory. "You're realizing that these things are personas and that all personas are these like elaborate complex mosaics of like who a person is," VanArendonk said. "The Osbournes" had both an immediate and a long-term affect on the genre. Both Caruso and VanArendonk said shows like "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica," which followed then-pop stars Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey after they married, was clearly a descendant. And countless other shows felt its influence, from "The Kardashians" to "The Baldwins" — the recently debuted reality series on Alec Baldwin, his wife Hilaria and their seven kids. "'The Baldwins' as a reality show is explicitly modeled on 'The Osbournes,' VanArendonk said. "It's like you have these famous people and now you get to see what their home lives are like, what they are like as parents, what they're eating, what they are taking on with them on vacation, who their pets are, and they are these sort of cuddly, warm, eccentric figures."
Al Arabiya
8 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Republicans seek to rename opera house after US First Lady Melania Trump
Republicans in the US House of Representatives sought Tuesday to rename the opera house in Washington's John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after First Lady Melania Trump. The Republican-led House Appropriations Committee voted to advance language that would condition funding for Washington's premier cultural institution on the name change as it debated the 2026 budget. Idaho congressman Mike Simpson, who introduced an amendment to call the venue the 'First Lady Melania Trump Opera House,' said it was an 'excellent way to recognize her support and commitment to promoting the arts.' The move marked the latest front in President Donald Trump's hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center, after he fired board members in February and appointed himself chairman, and replaced its longtime president with ally Richard Grenell. Trump, who accused the institution of being too 'woke,' also picked White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino and Second Lady Usha Vance to serve as trustees. The president was met with cheers and boos at the center in June as he attended an opening night performance of hit musical 'Les Miserables.' Republicans have been keen to flatter Trump and help the president cement his legacy in his second term, including by introducing legislation to rename the capital region's Dulles International Airport after him. There have also been efforts in Congress to replace Benjamin Franklin with Trump on the $100 bill, to carve Trump's likeness on the iconic Mount Rushmore, to name a national holiday after him and to reimagine Washington's Metro train service as the Trump Train. The Kennedy Center change was added to legislation principally providing 2026 funding for the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency. But the 2,364-seat theater -- the second-largest at the Kennedy Center complex -- would only get its new designation if the change was approved by both chambers of Congress. Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate and spending bills require 60 votes to pass, meaning Democrats may be able to strip the name change out of the text before any final vote.
