Connect with us

Lifestyle

The Chiefs Won the Super Bowl. Will Taylor Swift Visit the White House?

Published

on

The Chiefs Won the Super Bowl. Will Taylor Swift Visit the White House?

The Kansas City Chiefs have just won the Super Bowl, and that is nice. But just to focus on the real news for one second: Could this mean that Taylor Swift — the global superstar, football enthusiast and onetime Biden endorser — is going to visit the White House?

Asked on Monday whether the White House would extend an invitation to the singer, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said that decision was up to the team, not President Biden.

“That’s going to be up to the Chiefs, and obviously, their decision to figure out who’s going to come with them when they come,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said. “And as you know, it’s a White House tradition. I can’t, I can’t speak to attendance and who will be here, but we look forward to having them here.”

Here is some background for the six people on planet Earth who might still need it: Ms. Swift, the pop singer, has been dating Travis Kelce, a tight end for the Chiefs, since at least the fall, embarking on an expanded version of the soft-focus, jock-meets-music-nerd love story that she once divined as a younger songwriter. And Mr. Kelce, the most famous tight end in the National Football League thanks in part to his girlfriend’s star power, is on the team that will receive a traditional invitation from the president to celebrate their win at the White House.

Sports teams invited to the White House generally receive a set allotment of tickets to events, and the administration does not decide the guest list, according to a person familiar with the process who was not authorized to detail it publicly, and significant others do not always come.

Advertisement

But, that person said, if Ms. Swift wanted to attend, the administration would “make it work.”

A White House visit from Ms. Swift would add fuel to several theories — none of which she has acknowledged herself — that she has the power to bolster Mr. Biden’s re-election bid and sink the prospects of his likely challenger, Donald J. Trump.

In recent weeks, Mr. Biden’s allies have buzzed with anticipation that Ms. Swift may deliver an endorsement, as she did in 2020. Mr. Trump seems anxious about that prospect as well. In a social media post over the weekend, he said he was responsible for legislation that has contributed to Ms. Swift’s success.

“There’s no way she could endorse Crooked Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt President in the History of our Country, and be disloyal to the man who made her so much money,” Mr. Trump said. “Besides that, I like her boyfriend, Travis, even though he may be a Liberal, and probably can’t stand me!”

Ms. Swift, 34, had no comment — but she has historically not reacted well when people have tried to take ownership of her work. And in any case, she was busy, and probably jet-lagged, after traveling from her tour in Tokyo to the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. There, she chugged a drink on national television, jumped up and down in support of her boyfriend and joined him on the field for a kiss after the Chiefs won.

Advertisement

On Sunday evening, it was Mr. Biden, and not Mr. Trump, who made mention of the conservative conspiracy theory that the singer is actually an operative for the Democratic Party — or the Pentagon? it’s hard to follow — in her spare time, and that her romance with Mr. Kelce, 34, is actually part of a sinister plot to thwart Mr. Trump. Or something like that.

“Just like we drew it up, @Chiefs,” Mr. Biden’s account wrote on social media after the game, along with an image that paid a homage to his “Dark Brandon” alter ego, an edgier and more online version of the president, if he could shoot laser beams out of his eyes.

Anyway.

Ms. Swift has waded into politics in the years since the 2016 presidential race, when she was criticized for avoiding an endorsement and observers speculated over her political beliefs. In 2018, ahead of the midterm elections, she wrote on Instagram that she would vote for Phil Bredesen, a Democrat who was running against Marsha Blackburn for Senate in Tennessee. (Ms. Blackburn won.)

A clip from her 2020 documentary “Miss Americana” showed that the deliberation behind Ms. Swift’s decision to endorse Mr. Bredesen was more intense than was publicly known. In that clip, a tearful Ms. Swift told her father that she needed to be “on the right side of history” and that “if he doesn’t win, then at least I tried.”

Advertisement

In that conversation, her father, Scott Swift, warned her about the danger of getting involved in politics, saying that he had to order “armored cars” to keep his daughter safe.

In October 2020, Ms. Swift endorsed Mr. Biden in an interview with V Magazine.

“I will proudly vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in this year’s presidential election. Under their leadership, I believe America has a chance to start the healing process it so desperately needs,” she said at the time.

Tree Paine, a representative for Ms. Swift, did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday asking whether the singer would travel to the White House or whether she planned to endorse Mr. Biden.

Advertisement

Lifestyle

Sunday Puzzle: That’s HOT!

Published

on

Sunday Puzzle: That’s HOT!

Sunday Puzzle

NPR


hide caption

toggle caption

Advertisement

NPR

Sunday Puzzle

On-air challenge

Today’s theme is “hot.” Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase in which the first word starts HO- and the second word starts with T-.

Ex. Rowdy bar with country music, in slang –> HONKY TONK
1. Guided walkthrough of a property
2. Any member of the N.H.L.
3. Lone Star State metropolis that’s the fourth-largest city in the U.S.
4. Like an animal with its four legs bound (hyph.)
5. Instruction manual (hyph.)
6. A little pompous and arrogant, informally (hyph.)
7. Punny greeting from a magician
8. Someone who steals animals from a stable
9. Congestion that drivers encounter around July 4th, say
10. Acquisition of a company against its will.
11. Exclamation for “wow!” on TV’s “Batman”

Last week’s challenge

Last week’s challenge comes from Evan Kalish, of Bayside, N.Y. Take the name of a nocturnal creature, in two words. The first word is a spooky sound. Move the last letter of the first word to the start of the second word and you’ll get another spooky, nocturnal sound. What is the creature and what are the sounds?

Answer: Screech owl –> howl

Winner

Dan Sadoff of St. Paul, Minnesota

Advertisement

This week’s challenge

This week’s challenge comes from Rawson Sheinberg. of Plymouth, Mich. Think of a U.S. city with a two-word name. Add a letter to the first word, without rearranging letters, to name a country. Then, without adding a letter, rearrange the letters of the second word to name another country. What places are these?

If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it here by Thursday, July 2 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: include a phone number where we can reach you.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Lifestyle

This mindset shift can help you get better at using up your leftovers

Published

on

This mindset shift can help you get better at using up your leftovers

If you’re struggling to use up leftovers like a half-eaten rotisserie chicken, turn the assignment into a creative exercise, says chef Margaret Li. It’ll make the cooking process more fun and less guilt-driven.

Pulse/Getty Images/Corbis RF Stills


hide caption

toggle caption

Advertisement

Pulse/Getty Images/Corbis RF Stills

On a recent weeknight, I opened up my fridge and found an assortment of half-eaten or ignored food.

That included takeout that I didn’t find appetizing enough to eat for lunch. A rotisserie chicken with most of the meat picked off. A couple of raw vegetables from the farmers market that were starting to wilt.

Advertisement

“There’s nothing to eat,” I told myself. Yet even I knew that was ridiculous. There was plenty of food in my fridge. I just didn’t feel inspired to cook with it.

So I asked some chefs for guidance. How could I more consistently use leftovers and the other ingredients I tend to overlook?

Start with a mindset shift, says Margaret Li, chef and co-author of the cookbook Perfectly Good Food: A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking. Think about cooking with leftovers as a creative, experimental exercise, not a guilt-driven one.

“It ends up being this fun game where you are creating something from what seems like nothing and solving this puzzle, and then you get to eat it,” she says.

There are other good reasons to use up your food scraps. Nationally, about a quarter of food products go to waste, according to the nonprofit ReFED. In my own household, where we spend about $200 a week on groceries, that means I might be throwing out the equivalent of $50 of food — an unnecessary burden on my wallet, not to mention the environment.

Advertisement

The chefs I spoke to had some practical tips about using up more of the food we buy. Here are a few that I put to the test.

Find your “hero recipes”

Build up an arsenal of go-to recipes that are flexible enough to use up just about any ingredient. Li calls them “hero recipes.”

I tried one of these from her cookbook, called “Make-It-Your-Own Stir-Fry.” (Scroll down for the recipe.) It includes loose ingredients like “1 pound crisp-crunchy vegetables” or “4 cups leafy greens.”

In the spirit of the recipe, I pulled vegetables out of my fridge at random and did not measure them out. The sauce was a simple mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, sugar and water. By the time I topped my bowl with chopped scallions, the dish looked like a gourmet meal, not an afterthought.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Lifestyle

‘Wait Wait’ for June 27, 2026: With Not My Job guest Stephen Malkmus

Published

on

‘Wait Wait’ for June 27, 2026: With Not My Job guest Stephen Malkmus

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks perform onstage during day two of the Boston Calling Music Festival at Boston City Hall Plaza on September 26, 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Mike Lawrie/Getty Images)

Mike Lawrie/Getty Images


hide caption

toggle caption

Advertisement

Mike Lawrie/Getty Images

This week’s show was recorded in Chicago with host Peter Sagal, judge and scorekeeper Alzo Slade, Not My Job guest Stephen Malkmus and panelists Emmy Blotnick, Joyelle Nicole Johnson, and Gianmarco Soresi. Click the audio link above to hear the whole show.

Who’s Alzo This Time

Pool Problems; Don’t Forget to Hydrate; The Rise of Hot Podium Guy

Advertisement

Panel Questions

TSA Gets A Dressing Down

Bluff The Listener

Our panelists tell three stories about game shows in the news, only one of which is true.

Not My Job: Stephen Malmus, lead singer and guitarist for Pavement, answers our questions about road construction

Advertisement

Indie rock legend and founder of Pavement, Stephen Malkmus, joins us to play a game called, “Pavement repairs are underway!” Three questions about road construction.

Panel Questions

The Battle Over A Home Sale; The Best Three Words To Get Over A Loss and Out of a Meeting?; A New Job in the Dating World

Limericks

Alzo Slade reads three news-related limericks: Good News For Gym Slobs; Cruisin’ For A Tattooin’; Fringe Food Benefits

Advertisement

Lightning Fill In The Blank

All the news we couldn’t fit anywhere else

Predictions

Our panelists predict what will find after the reflecting pool is emptied

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending