Nicole Chavez and Justin Gamble, reporting for CNN:

A film about a Black first grader who integrated an all-White elementary school in the South is under review in a Florida school district after a parent objected to the movie[…]

Two weeks before the movie was shown to second graders at North Shore Elementary, permission forms were sent to the students’ parents along with a link to the “Ruby Bridges” trailer, Mascareñas said. The parent who filed the objection was among the two families that opted to not have their students watch the movie, she said. […]

The 1998 film’s screenwriter, Toni Ann Johnson:

“If children are old enough to be called the N-word and learn what it means, then it’s my opinion that second graders who are 7 and 8 years of age can and should begin to learn about the history of racism in this country,” Johnson said. 

Such a salient point. The people trying to prevent this movie from being shown are the same people whose parents were in school when Ruby Bridges was integrating William Frantz Elementary School, and their grandparents were the ones hurling slurs at a six-year-old girl.

It’s a truly succinct summary of the Republican Party’s evolution: a generation of outspoken and violent racists, followed by a generation of stereotype-prone assholes, followed by the generation who “just asks questions” and wants to “protect the children”.

The ignorance is unparalleled. If a six-year-old is old enough to be vilified like Ruby Bridges was for simply daring to go to school, then your fragile, tender eight-year-old babies are not too young to learn about the transgressions and atrocities their immediate relatives committed against her.

First and foremost, I want to point out that the shortcut I’m about to reference only works for people using Apple Music (right now, at least; if you have Spotify or something else, pressure them to add support for Apple’s Shortcuts app).

Basically, what I’ve done here is create a series of custom wallpapers using photographs that I took myself that I feel match the vibe of some of my favorite albums. I then created a shortcut to change the wallpaper to the corresponding image when a particular album plays using automations.

I posted about this on reddit a couple months ago. At the time it was just for Taylor Swift's ten albums, but I’ve since expanded it to others, and you can expand it as much as you like, to work for whichever albums you care about.

Step one: decide which albums you want to change your lock screen for. This is a very personal set of decisions, and I can’t decide for you. Choose an album, then find a photo from your photo library and make a Lock Screen that evokes the vibe of the album you’ve chosen.

Step two: set up a shortcut to tell your phone to switch the wallpaper automatically when a song plays. Here’s a link to a basic version of the shortcut made to work with ONE album/wallpaper set. If you want multiple, you’ll need to go into the guts of the shortcut and add a couple steps for each additional album you want to create a wallpaper for. For each additional album you want to change your Lock Screen for, add an “If” statement to the shortcut. Then tap the first item that says “Input” and select “Album”. Then, where it says “Condition”, tap “contains”. Then, where it says “text”, type the name of the album you’re referencing EXACTLY as it appears in the Music app (spelling, symbols, and capitalization matter). After you’ve added and set up the “If” statement, you need to add the “Switch Wallpaper” action. After adding this action, it will prompt you to select a wallpaper; choose the one you created to match the album you’re currently working on.

Step three: create an automation to run the shortcut automatically. Go to the Automations tab of the shortcut app, and tap “create new personal automation”. Then, when presented with trigger options, choose “App”, and then make sure “Is Open” AND “Is Closed” are both selected. Then, where it says “App”, tap “Choose”, and select some of your most frequently used apps. I selected about twenty of my most frequently used apps.

Step four: after you've set up the automation, you’ll want to prevent it from telling you it’s running, since it’ll happen any time you open or close your most used apps (all those notifications will get annoying pretty quickly). Go to the automation you just made in step three, then turn off the toggle for “Ask Before Running”, and then turn make sure then toggle for “Notify When Run” is also turned off.

And that’s it! Now, any time you open or close any of the apps you designated in step three, your phone will check to see what song is playing (if any), and will change your wallpaper to match the album the song belongs to.

Here’s a short video of the shortcut in action using Taylor Swift inspired wallpapers.

Shortcuts can be notoriously difficult to set up, so if you have any questions, feel free to reach out through our contact page for support!

David Remnek, writing for The New Yorker:

It’s not even clear that the most vociferous of the pro-Trump groups such as the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters, which have endured intense investigation and legal charges for their roles in the Capitol insurrection, will be eager to take to the streets again in Trump’s name. Recently, Ali Alexander, one of the organizers of the Stop the Steal rallies that followed the 2020 election, posted on social media, “Previously, I had said if Trump was arrested or under the threat of a perp walk, 100,000 patriots should shut down all routes to Mar-a-Lago. Now, I’m retired. I’ll pray for him though!”

I suppose it’s difficult to maintain enthusiasm for your favorite criminal when he keeps losing elections.

If you’re going to the tour and don’t want to know the setlist, then:

⚠️ Spoiler Warning

Like right now.

Seriously.

Look away, DON’T glance down.

At all.

Okay, you’re still here.

Onward!

The setlist:

1. Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince

2. Cruel Summer

3. The Man

4. You Need To. Calm Down

5. Lover

6. The Archer

7. Fearless

8. You Belong With Me

9. Love Story

10. ‘tis the damn season

11. willow

12. marjorie

13. champagne problems

14. tolerate it

15. …Ready for it?

16. Delicate

17. Don’t Blame Me

18. Look What You Made Me Do

19. Enchanted

20. 22

21. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together

22. I Knew You Were Trouble

23. All Too Well (10 Minute Version)

24. seven

25. invisible string

26. betty

27. the last great american dynasty

28. august

29. illicit affairs

30. my tears ricochet

31. cardigan

32. Style

33. Blank Space

34. Shake It Off

35. Wildest Dreams

36. Bad Blood

37. surprise song

38. surprise song

39. Lavender Haze

40. Anti-Hero

41. Midnight Rain

42. Vigilante Shit

43. Bejeweled

44. Mastermind

45. Karma

I have so many thoughts but first of all: how fucking insane is it that she’s doing FORTY FIVE SONGS per night!?!? In my wildest dreams, I was hoping for a count in the low thirties. This woman truly goes FAR above and beyond for her fans. I can’t imagine how physically taxing this tour will be for her, doing a three hour long show two or three nights a week until September.

Given that number of songs, it feels supremely disrespectful and unappreciative to suggest that anything about it isn’t good enough, but I do find the lack or representation for two albums in particular a bit striking. Speak Now has only ONE song on the permanent setlist, and the debut album has NONE. While Taylor may supplement the representation for these albums using the two surprise songs, that still doesn’t really do much to close the gap between these neglected albums and most of the others, which on average gave at least five songs each.

My expectation going in was that the more recent, untoured albums would be favored, but not quite this extensively. I expected there to be about thirty songs on the setlist, with a decent number of mashups/medleys. I expected each album to get at least two songs, but for some to get up to four or five. What I didn’t expect was for ANY album to get seven or eight, which is what happened. Folklore got the most, at eight, then was Midnights at seven, followed by Lover at six, and Evermore at five. 1989 also had five, while Red and Reputation both got four. That left Speak Now with one, and the Debut album with NO songs on the recurring setlist. Very curious, especially given the strong hints that Speak Now would be the next rerecorded album to be released.

What for you ask? Good question, the list of possible charges is pretty long.

From Emily Olson at NPR:

A quick refresher: Trump is currently facing at least five investigations, covering everything from his possession of classified documents to his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But the latest indictment rumors stem from just one of those probes: the one led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Bragg's office is examining whether Trump and his company broke state laws in paying hush money to adult film star Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels.

Daniels says she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, a claim that Trump has repeatedly denied. But his company still paid $130,000 to the star in exchange for her silence during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

In 2018, a campaign finance investigation into that payment led Trump's longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen to plead guilty to federal charges. […]

Federal prosecutors have also said that it was Trump himself who directed Cohen to arrange the payments, meaning Trump could be held responsible for those false records.

Doesn’t sound great.

That said (and let me first remark that NO ONE is above the law; I’m not saying he shouldn’t be held accountable because of the political ramifications (what an odd sentence to type, but alas, we live in a political climate where 40% of voters are so throughly brainwashed by Facebook and Fox News that being a felon isn’t a disqualifier for presidential candidates)), I do wonder what the result of a possible arrest will be. My fear is that it could be easily weaponized by Trump to stoke fear and anger resulting in political violence, or that it could be capitalized upon by Ron DeSantis to put Trump’s campaign in the grave, cementing his spot as the Republican Presidential nominee frontrunner. And I’d much rather Biden face a rematch with a withered, resentful old Donald Trump than a much younger, more palatable but still extremist Ron DeSantis.

I’m torn between whether I’d rather see Trump on his perp walk pre-hair and makeup, or whether I’d rather see the orange spray tan/cheeto dust stained handcuffs after the fact.