by Hannah Holland | Sep 16, 2026 | Business, culture, Opinion
For the second time in just over a year, actor Sydney Sweeney is at the center of an advertising controversy that illuminates lurking realities of American culture. This time, Sweeney posed nearly nude, strategically covering her body with various sports equipment, for sports predication market platform Novig.
At one point, while wearing soccer cleats and little else, Sweeney looks at the camera and says, “No betting on wars or deaths and no politics. Just you, your takes and sports.”
No politics, eh?
I find it hard to argue that politics have no bearing on an intentionally provocative ad for a prediction market platform featuring a blatantly sexualized woman during a time when women’s reproductive rights are under attack.
Rage bait works. Hot takes work. Spectacle works. Algorithms reward engagement.
In what appears to be a response to the considerable backlash to the ad, including post after post from Olympic and collegiate athletes showing “what a woman in sports looks like,” Sweeney posted a series of photos from ESPN Magazine’s “The Body Issue.” Discontinued since 2019, the long-running issue featured athletes nude or partially nude, showcasing the power, strength and physicality required for athletic excellence. What Sweeney conveyed in the advertisement is wholly different, namely because she is not, nor is she claiming to be, an athlete of any kind.
Sweeney’s previous marketing firestorm — a campaign for American Eagle — became so polarizing and so contentious that I got death threats for writing about it.
Then, among other things, my column posited that advertisements, like Sweeney for American Eagle and Kendall Jenner for Pepsi, reflect what is pervasive in American culture at that time. And while I
by Zeeshan Aleem | Sep 16, 2026 | culture, Opinion, White House, World
Donald Trump Jr. hasn’t taken kindly to the recent scrutiny of his lavish wedding party, following the revelation that it was partially bankrolled by a Russian oligarch with deep ties to the Kremlin. In a joint statement with his wife, Trump Jr. argued that “friendship doesn’t require a political motive” and “sometimes a wedding gift is simply a wedding gift.” His defense might make an ounce of sense if he was not the son of the president.
Investigative media outlet ProPublica, citing records it reviewed and interviews with three people familiar with the event, revealed on Monday that Trump Jr.’s three-day party held across two private islands was funded in part by Umar Kremlev, a “Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin.” Kremlev heads the International Boxing Association, an organization that has been financed by the Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom. ProPublica reported that Kremlev “footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses,” including paying to rent one of the islands and the fireworks show. (A spokesperson for Trump Jr. did not dispute the wedding payments from Kremlev and told ProPublica that “Umar is a personal friend of Don.”)
Without even getting into the political and geopolitical concerns, this arrangement is, on its face, peculiar for a few reasons. Trump Jr. said on his podcast that the party was “really small, like, just really close friends,” which makes it all the more striking that Kremlev helped pay for the celebration and attended. ProPublica says Kremlev “speaks limited English,” and Kremlev’s office said that he and Trump Jr. met “a couple of years ago.” President Donald Trump said he’s
by Sydney Carruth | Sep 15, 2026 | culture, News, Sports
A viral ad campaign for a sports prediction market featuring a nearly nude Sydney Sweeney drew backlash from professional women athletes and highlighted an unfolding regulatory battle between the Trump administration and states.
The “Euphoria” actor, who courted controversy last year over an American Eagle ad campaign, wears “just sports” in the new ad for Novig, a sports-only prediction market. She is shown covering parts of her body with sporting equipment such as footballs and basketball hoops.
“No betting on wars, or deaths and no politics,” Sweeney says in the ad. “Just you, your takes and sports.”
Timed to align with the start of the 2026 NFL season, the campaign sparked outrage from professional female athletes who argue its “hypersexualized” nature reinforces sexist stereotypes. Some raised concerns over the “damaging” message it sends to young women athletes.
“I can’t describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this,” Ariarne Titmus, a four-time Australian Olympic gold medalist, wrote in a statement posted to her Instagram account. “How do we live in a world where monetising a women’s body and sexualising women’s sport is still a thing?” the retired swimmer wrote.
Sweeney’s ad has garnered more than 42 million views since it was posted to Novig’s Instagram page last week. Social media users, from Olympians to fitness influencers, have responded with a cascade of videos of themselves pushing their athletic abilities and highlighting major accomplishments in women’s sports.
“I absolutely hate Sydney Sweeney’s new ‘sports’ ad,” Mia Vallee, an NCAA springboard diver for the University of Miami, wrote over a video clip of her executing a complicated dive routine. “Media focuses on how we look not what we
by Noor Noman | Sep 15, 2026 | culture, Opinion, Politics
Ed Sheeran’s avowed political neutrality — as if such a thing exists — has finally caught up with him. After facing pressure, the British singer-songwriter, who is playing U.S. stadiums as part of his Loop Tour, dropped Seattle rapper Macklemore from the tour after he made “Free Palestine” statements during a show at MetLife Stadium on Sept. 4.
Let us be clear about what has happened here: Even if he thinks it’s possible to not take a side on hot-button issues — “I don’t get involved in politics,” he said in 2017 about the previous year’s Brexit vote — he’s illustrating that not picking a side means upholding existing power structures and buttressing the oppressive ideologies that support them.
Rather than standing up to this brazen display of ideological censorship, by all appearances, Sheeran kowtowed. He hasn’t made any public statements about what Macklemore said or any statements about his removal.
Billionaire Robert Kraft, who owns the NFL’s New England Patriots, is Jewish and a strong supporter of Israel, told Rolling Stone in a statement that he made the call to keep Macklemore from performing at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, which is owned by the Kraft Group. Kraft cited what he called the rapper’s “recent actions, material shared from the stage during Ed Sheeran’s shows in New Jersey, and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community.”
The magazine said Kraft’s statement didn’t acknowledge Macklemore’s claim that Kraft “rallied some of the other stadium owners” who allegedly “gave [Sheeran] an ultimatum: If Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not
by Katie MacBride | Aug 16, 2026 | culture, Opinion
After seven years of much-publicized sobriety, Brad Pitt earlier this month told Esquire that he is “back off the wagon.” Given that Pitt has spent the last few years publicly volunteering information about his alcohol use and subsequent sobriety, his casual revelation that he now drinks “in a more restrained manner” raised more than a few eyebrows and spurred a wave of headlines.
Initially, I was wary of commenting f news. Brad Pitt’s sobriety is none of my business. But I’m also a sober journalist who writes a newsletter about addiction recovery; whether or not a person with a history of alcohol addiction can moderate their alcohol use after a period of sobriety is among the most frequent questions I receive.
Whether or not a person with a history of alcohol addiction can moderate their alcohol use after a period of sobriety is among the most frequent questions I receive.
Given that Pitt has repeatedly spoken publicly about his struggles with alcohol and subsequent sobriety, discussing the latest development feels like fair game.
The story also raises a second issue worth exploring: the redemptive recovery narrative as public image rehabilitation.
The immediate question, and the genesis of so many headlines following Pitt’s “off the wagon” admission, is whether a former “problem drinker” can drink moderately following a period of sobriety. For decades, the medical establishment would confidently declare the answer is no.
Historically, doctors viewed alcoholism as binary — a person either had an alcohol addiction, or they did not. If they did, conventional wisdom dictated that lifelong abstinence from alcohol was the only solution. If a sober alcoholic picked up a drink after years of
by Gene Weingarten | Aug 15, 2026 | Criminal Justice, culture, Opinion
At 1 p.m. Saturday, 17-month-old Daniel Coleman will be memorialized in Atlanta. As of Friday night, it was unclear whether his mother will arrive at the mortuary in handcuffs. After a fraught legal battle, she won permission to attend the service. Deja Coleman will arrive in a police car. She may or may not be handcuffed. The sheriff’s office will decide whether she can wear civilian clothes appropriate for a funeral or if she will be in a green polyester prison jumpsuit. Coleman has been incarcerated since July 29, the day she accidentally killed her son.
This unspeakable tragedy happens alarmingly often to parents from all walks of life — mothers and fathers of every race, rich and poor, absentminded and fanatically organized.
Last month, Coleman, 29, forgot to drop her youngest child, Daniel, off at daycare after she walked her other two children, ages 6 and 4, inside; she soon left Daniel in her car in the employee parking lot of the hospital where she worked as an assistant nurse, and he sweltered to death. Neither Coleman nor the police contest that narrative. By all accounts, what happened to Daniel was an accident occasioned by sleep deprivation and stress. Friends describe Coleman as a cheerful, upbeat person and a devoted mother. Her pastor, Jesse Hardy, said “she would run through a brick wall for those children.”
What makes this case unusual is that Coleman has been charged with second-degree murder. In Georgia, such a crime carries a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 10 years.
This unspeakable tragedy happens alarmingly often to parents from all walks of life — mothers and fathers
