Latest news with #NightOut
The Star
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
What's your sign to keep swiping?
The daters are down. The dating apps feel universally terrible. (Or, as one person noted, the apps are where 'I keep meeting the devil incarnate.') But out of an unlikely font of romantic inspiration – the New York mayor's race – came a sign of hope. 'Zohran shows that if you're pure of heart, Hinge is fine, good even,' one dater posted. 'Maybe I should give it a try again,' another posted. They were responding to the revelation that Zohran Mamdani, 33, the Democratic mayoral nominee, had met his wife, Rama Duwaji, 27, an animator and illustrator, on the dating app Hinge. If they could do it, maybe all was not lost. App dating seems to need a boost these days. Artificial intelligence-powered matchmaking and tightened security are just some of the ways that the dating app companies have tried to shore up engagement, but some users continue to express fatigue over online dating, and Match Group and Bumble have lost billions in market value since 2021. A 2024 Forbes Health Survey reported that 78% of daters said they were feeling mentally and physically exhausted by the services. A 2023 Axios/Generation Lab survey of college and graduate students across the country found that 79% of respondents did not use dating apps. In my conversations with dozens of match seekers in writing about dating for the past 2 1/2 years, people have said that using dating apps can feel like another job, that it's difficult to truly gauge compatibility through a screen and that they prefer meeting people in real life. Still, three in 10 adults are still using the apps, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center study. And people feel like they can't fully give up. So New Yorkers, and politics watchers, and romance fans in general seized on Mamdani's Hinge success as a small, unexpected moment of reassurance that it is possible to actually meet someone, that it's not all endless swiping and disappointment. 'It definitely gives me hope that they found each other on Hinge – I think in general, I feel a little bit disillusioned by the apps,' said Jenny Gorelick, a comedian and writer living in New York City who also volunteered for Mamdani's campaign. In her Substack blog, 'Night Out', she writes about her experience exploring New York's nightlife as a single woman. 'I've only ever, in almost a decade of dating on Hinge, had one boyfriend that came from the app,' she added. 'Out of 220 matches on Hinge, one boyfriend is not amazing odds.' Mamdani seems to know that his story may feel like an outlier, but he encouraged singles not to give up. In an interview with the podcast 'The Bulwark' in June, the subject of dating came up. Cameron Kasky, one of the show's hosts, expressed his dismay over New York City's social scene and his love life. 'In terms of dating, it has been a disaster for me lately – my heart has been broken, I have broken hearts,' he said. He explained how difficult he had found it to make connections in real life, something he pointed as deeply affecting members of Gen Z. How, he asked Mamdani, would he as mayor revitalise the New York social scene? 'I met my wife on Hinge, so there is still hope in those dating apps,' he replied. Jeniea Howard, a 32-year-old content creator who often recaps her app dates online, even the failed ones, agreed that there was hope out there. Her move to Washington, D.C., from New York City two months ago did not stop her from using Hinge, the only dating app she's currently on. It has, in fact, become one of her main reasons to stay on: to meet new people in a new environment. 'I met my ex on Hinge, and we dated for close to three years, and we really only broke up because we weren't as compatible as we originally thought,' she said. 'If I found him and he was great, I'm sure I can find somebody else,' she added. She also worked from home and said that because all of her hobbies weren't the type of things that would attract straight men – pole dancing, boutique fitness classes, drag shows – she realised that she probably wouldn't meet her man in any of those spaces. 'I'm not going to change up my entire life and the things that I love doing, so let me go back on this app and maybe I'll have more luck, because the chances of me running into someone were a little bit slimmer,' she said. Like Howard, Akiera Charles hasn't abandoned the apps. She re-downloaded Hinge on July 1, just two days after she had broken up with a man she had dated for about a month. After venting about her breakup on Instagram, she said, part of getting back on the app was because she wanted to take her mind off her ex. The other reason, though, was that she still had hope for the app after dating someone she had met on Hinge for about a year. 'Since that point of me meeting that person on Hinge and it being successful initially, I still hold out that type of hope, like maybe I am going to find my person on Hinge,' she said. She also has friends who have had success stories on the app, including one woman who is married to, and recently had a baby with, a man she met on Hinge. 'If all of these people around me are meeting their person on Hinge,' she said, 'there has to be something in this app.' – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Irish Independent
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
‘The Sweeney' at 50: How a brash, brutal police drama transformed British television
The Sweeney first hit screens (and also gave a good walloping to every wayward villain in west London) in January 1975. Its second series, of a total of four broadcast on ITV, followed in September of the same year. Alongside Thaw, who died in 2002, Dennis Waterman co-starred as the affable, capable DS George Carter. Waterman died in 2022, leaving few members of the fictionalised Flying Squad (the series derived its name from cockney rhyming slang: 'Sweeney Todd') still with us, let alone still working. But Nick Brimble, who played DC Gerry Burtonshaw, never stopped. Today a mainstay of the detective drama Grantchester, the 80-year-old recalls his Sweeney debut in the programme's sixth episode, 'Night Out'. 'It might have been my first day,' says Brimble, 'and we were doing a fight [scene] in a pub. I was there with Dennis, and we were running late. They said: 'OK, Dennis, Nick, make sure you don't get hurt. And go!' Suddenly, the whole place – which I thought was full of extras, turns out it was the entire stunt register – started smashing chairs over each other's heads and throwing bottles. I just stood there looking surprised!' But that's how it was, says the actor, who appeared in three series and the first of two Sweeney films (which made so much money they enabled production company EMI Films to make The Deer Hunter). During the pub fight, Brimble recalls Scottish actor Brian Coburn being knocked unconscious by a bottle that was meant to be made from toffee glass. These days, he says, projects don't come close to this level of realism – or violence. 'And obviously, you want to be safe,' adds Brimble, 'but sometimes you feel that things are a bit restricted. The Sweeney was flying by the seat of your pants – fights, action, the whole thing.' Cast members frequently arrived on set before seeing a script, and the wardrobe department would often call actors the night before filming to ask if they had a spare leather jacket for the shoot tomorrow. 'I had suede. 'That'll do!' they said,' Brimble recalls. 'Even now, the show has a great energy,' he adds. 'And people still respond to it, watching reruns all these years later. It doesn't feel like some dusty old show. It feels, in a way, more lively than many things on TV now.' There's a reason for that. The Sweeney began life as 'Regan', a 1974 episode of anthology series Armchair Cinema. And, for all its envelope-pushing and convention-smashing, the show started off as something of a composite, borrowing elements from other crime dramas. Producers picked Thaw after seeing him play a military policeman in the drama series Redcap, while Waterman was chosen after he guest-starred in ITV's crime saga Special Branch. Writer Ted Childs was inspired by Gene Hackman thriller The French Connection. Series creator Ian Kennedy Martin looked to films including the Michael Caine vehicle Get Carter, Sitting Target with Oliver Reed, and the gangster movie Villain, starring Richard Burton, to inform the show's style. As such, when The Sweeney first aired – multiple influences under its belt, and a pilot in its pocket – it arrived fully formed. And there wasn't any laborious world-building to do, because this wasn't a far-fetched, fantastical London. This was the real thing – violence, hardship and all. 'The Seventies was a tough time. A gritty time,' says Tony Jordan, a seasoned writer and the creator of programmes including Hustle and Beyond Paradise. 'It can feel like it was quite shiny, polished and pop-arty. But it wasn't really like that. Everything was in economic decline, crime was rising – particularly in cities – and it was all a bit fractious. Television didn't truly represent that. Our crimefighters were things like The Avengers, all a bit nonsensical. There were exceptions, of course, but general mainstream television felt like a fantasy world. Heroes were heroes, and that's the way it worked.' Then came Jack Regan. 'He lived in the world we all lived in. He had moral ambiguity; he worried. He was a flawed hero, but he was on our side. He did terrible things – like kidnapping people – but he'd never take a bribe for himself. There wasn't a holier-than-thou reverence to it. He clearly had his demons, but still he did the right thing.' And Regan, says Jordan, more closely resembled the police he knew as a rebellious teenager. In fact, many of the show's catchphrases – 'We're the Sweeney, son, and we haven't had any dinner'; 'Get your trousers on, you're nicked!' – were borrowed from real-life, off-duty Flying Squad members whom producers spoke to in pubs around Scotland Yard. Regan and co may have been fictional, but they were real: human, fallible, and capable of making mistakes. 'It was aware of other TV,' Jordan explains. 'At one point, Regan has a lollipop and George says, 'Who loves ya, baby?', referencing Kojak. He'd say stuff like 'Life isn't like Z-Cars' or whistle the theme tune to Dixon of Dock Green. So audacious! How could you not love the audacity of that?' The Sweeney resonated across culture. Both Squeeze and Kate Bush namedropped the series in their lyrics. 'It wasn't about dissecting your lines or finding your character's motivation, says Brimble. 'It was about turning up and doing stuff. I think half of the show's realism comes from the fact it was done very fast. Energy is the word that comes to mind – lots of testosterone flying about. If there was a fight in a pub, you went and had a fight in a pub.' Brimble later played Little John in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. On set, that film's star, Kevin Costner, would constantly ask Brimble about London gangsters and his work on shows like The Sweeney. 'I had to say, 'I'm not one, Kevin – I'm just pretending, love.'' But The Sweeney attracted A-listers itself. Among the guest stars were John Hurt, Brian Blessed, Richard Griffiths – even Morecambe and Wise. Ray Winstone made his acting debut in series three, and went on to star in a flimsy cinematic reboot that bore little resemblance to the original show. That film, released in 2012, spawned a French remake in 2015 starring Jean Reno, which has itself produced a sequel. In the Nineties, Nissan spoofed the show in an ad campaign, and Matt Berry recently described his short-lived sitcom Year of the Rabbit as 'The Sweeney, but set in Victorian times'. The Sweeney lives on, then – not least in every hard-edged, hard-drinking copper on television today. 'Well, they'd like to be The Sweeney,' says Brimble. 'But that realism and action and energy is hard to reproduce these days. It was the first one that felt real – that's why people still aspire to it. But drama today is often too complicated. The Sweeney worked because it wasn't complicated. It was an adrenaline-fuelled rush.' (© The Independent)
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Michael Avenatti Resentenced to Reduced Prison Term
Former Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti had his federal prison sentence from a June 2022 financial fraud conviction reduced from an initial 14 years during a resentencing on Thursday in California. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice on Friday confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that U.S. District Judge James V. Selna on Thursday cut Avenatti's prison sentence to 135 months, or 11 years and 3 months, for a 2022 conviction for ripping off his California clients and others for millions of dollars. More from The Hollywood Reporter Appeals Court Temporarily Blocks Judge's Ruling to Return Control of National Guard to California Trump and Melania Are Booed, Cheered During MAGA's Night Out at Kennedy Center Premiere When Is a Torched Waymo More Than a Torched Waymo? An incarcerated Avenatti, who made a name for himself representing porn actor Daniels against U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term in the White House, will spend just under eight more years in prison to complete his federal prison sentence, after factoring in time served. This week's resentencing of Avenatti is not the end of his legal troubles. In February 2022, Avenatti was also convicted for stealing nearly $300,000 in book proceeds from Daniels and defrauding several other clients while attempting a shakedown of sports clothing giant Nike. Daniels initially hired Avenatti as part of an attempt to escape the terms of a $130,000 hush payment deal that kept the porn star from speaking publicly about an alleged sexual encounter that Trump claimed never happened. Avenatti parlayed his representation of Daniels into a string of cable news appearances in which he gained national attention for mocking and baiting Trump. On the financial fraud conviction, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2024 vacated the original 14 years sentence, setting up the resentencing by an erring Judge Selna in a Santa Ana, courthouse on Thursday. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Studio': 30 Famous Faces Who Play (a Version of) Themselves in the Hollywood-Based Series 22 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise
Yomiuri Shimbun
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yomiuri Shimbun
At Nats Park, a Tradition Continues and a Ballpark Becomes a ‘Safe Space'
Hannah Foslien/For The Washington Post Mari Con Carne performs during a drag show before the Nationals-Cubs game on Thursday. Sasha Colby got the invite, then got to work. The first trans woman of color to win the reality TV competition 'RuPaul's Drag Race,' Colby said she had been practicing for her ceremonial first pitch at Nationals Park, and – as she toed the rubber Thursday – felt pretty good about her chances of throwing a strike. But it turned out there was a minor oversight in her preparation. 'I didn't do it in heels when I practiced,' Colby, who wore a custom, unbuttoned Nationals jersey over a hot pink dress, said after bouncing her pitch to Nationals mascot Screech, who sported a rainbow jersey for the Nationals' Night Out, the team's annual Pride night. 'But I've heard that I did better than some people in flats.' (Colby heard right.) The errant toss didn't put a damper on a festive and meaningful evening. Colby wasn't the first drag queen to take the mound at Nationals Park – another former 'RuPaul's Drag Race' winner, Bianca Del Rio, did the honors at last year's Night Out, but there was a bit of Night Out history made before Washington's 7-1 loss to the Chicago Cubs. Shortly after the gates opened, the stage on the Budweiser Terrace, which typically plays host to cover bands, featured a 30-minute drag show, a first for Washington's Pride night. 'On the count of three, I want you to pretend this is a Beyoncé concert,' host Inita D said before opening the show. Three other performers in sparkly, sequined costumes followed, dancing their way through the gathering crowd, lip-synching and even breaking out an occasional cartwheel while collecting tips from smiling fans. Team DC, a nonprofit that educates the LGBTQ+ community on the benefits of team and individual sports participation, booked the pregame entertainment for Thursday's game. The volunteer organization's president, Miguel Ayala, said he was thrilled to have Colby take part given her track record as a transgender advocate, including during an appearance at a White House reception in 2023. Team DC has partnered with the Nationals to host Night Out since the inaugural event at RFK Stadium in 2005, when staffers worried they wouldn't be able to sell their allotment of 200 tickets. This year, the number of special tickets sold, which came with a Pride-themed Nationals jersey and benefited Team DC's student-athlete scholarship fund, exceeded last year's record total of roughly 7,500. The prevailing message among those in attendance was one of support. 'Sometimes the sports world is not as friendly to the LGBTQ community as I would like,' Nationals fan Younger Oliver said after the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington sang the national anthem. 'So it feels important for me to come and show my support as an ally and be part of it, and spend my money and show MLB and the Nats that this is something that I care about.' 'This feels like an easy way to stand up, show up and be around community, which is really nice, because things are really depressing right now,' Oliver's friend, Hannah Cook, said, referencing the current political climate. 'You don't always take time to experience the joy, and I think that's more important than ever.' With D.C. hosting WorldPride, the world's largest LGBTQ+ festival, it's perhaps no surprise that the 20th edition of one of the longest-running Pride events in professional sports was the biggest version yet. But it was also held against the backdrop of the Trump administration's attack on transgender rights and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which has led some brands to distance themselves from Pride events. Within Major League Baseball, Pride nights have drawn attention in recent years, often because of players pushing back on the celebrations for religious reasons. In 2022, five Tampa Bay Rays players refused to wear the team's Pride night uniform, which featured rainbow colors on the jerseys and caps. In 2023, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, citing a 'desire to protect players,' said the league told its teams to avoid putting Pride logos on uniforms. That year, Nationals pitcher Trevor Williams invoked his Catholic faith when he voiced his opposition to the Los Angeles Dodgers' decision to honor the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group whose members dress in colored habits and cloaks, on Pride night. Every MLB team except the Texas Rangers will celebrate Pride in some fashion this month. The Nationals, in partnership with Team DC, leaned into their celebration. 'From our end, it's a no-brainer that we're going to continue having a Night Out again and again, because our philosophy is that baseball is for everyone,' said Betsy Philpott, chief legal officer for the Nationals and a member of the organization's Pride employee resource group. 'It feels right, it feels like it's needed and like a good time to do it,' said D.C.-based drag queen Mari Con Carne, who wore black thigh-high boots and a flower-print top for her pregame performance. 'It's beautiful, it's love, and it's part of the resistance we're trying to show in any political climate. It's not just the past few months. It's been here forever, and celebration is a part of the resistance.' 'For the Nationals to really put themselves out there and make themselves an ally – not just saying things and not just having one Pride night, but doing things throughout the year – it's special, and it makes you feel safe as a queer person walking around,' said Colby, who will host a party at Atlantis on Friday and perform on the main stage at the WorldPride street festival on Saturday. 'Who would've thought that [a baseball stadium] would be a safe space for us?' While Night Out is among the Nationals' most successful special-ticket events, Philpott noted that the team holds various theme nights to celebrate many other cross-sections of the community throughout the season. 'We want to make sure that everyone in the DMV area feels comfortable coming to games and that they can be part of this experience of watching the Nationals with us,' Philpott said. On Thursday, a Pride flag flew beyond left field as a crowd of 30,402 filled the stands. Tom held up a Pride flag after winning the Presidents' Race, which featured Team DC scholarship winners at the finish line. The stadium lights and scoreboards featured rainbow colors and imagery throughout the night. Colby said the Nationals' latest celebration of the LGBTQ+ community came at an important time. 'It just seems so pertinent right now, especially for a lot of queer people, a lot of people of color,' she said after her ceremonial pitch and a pregame meet-and-greet with fans. 'We're feeling oppressed. Pride is a protest, so this is a perfect time to really just protest with absolute queer strength and celebration. That's our weapon of choice.'
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Fans Take Notice of Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez's Appearances During Night Out
Fans Take Notice of Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez's Appearances During Night Out originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Pop star Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez caused a stir Saturday night when they were spotted enjoying a private dinner at Monkey Bar in Midtown Manhattan. The long-time best friends, often dubbed "Taylena" by fans, reunited for a glamorous girls' night out that quickly became the talk of social media. The two global stars, both billionaires and major forces in the music and beauty industries, were photographed laughing and chatting inside the iconic Monkey Bar, which had been closed for a private event. Swift wore a shimmering black Gucci mini dress with silver trim and platform heels, while Gomez turned heads in a chic brown halter top and matching pantsuit. Photos shared by Taylor Swift Updates on X captured the stylish pair leaving the venue together. Fans were quick to fill the comments section with excitement and glowing reviews. "Selena's outfit said power and poise while Taylor gave us champagne chic," one fan gushed. "That's not a dinner date, that's fashion history walking past you," wrote another. "Hair, slay. Outfit, slay. Attitude, slay," a user commented. "Their face cards seem unreal. They both look so stunning," another said. "Face cards are unreal," echoed a comment. And one simply shared, "They look so good wow." Fans were also quick to notice Swift's sparkling 'TNT' bracelet: short for "Taylor 'n' Travis," a nod to her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce. Gomez, meanwhile, was glowing in warm earth tones, her makeup sharp and her slicked-back bun giving her an elegant look. The dinner came just one day after Swift announced a major career milestone: she now officially owns the master recordings of her first six albums. Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez's glamorous NYC outing may have lasted just one night, but for Swifties and Selenators, it was a pop culture moment to story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 2, 2025, where it first appeared.
