Dan Clarendon

freelance journalist, storyteller, aspiring television writer, pilot penner, editor, blogger, Photoshopper, IB diploma recipient, City Year alumnus, Hampshire frog, cat lover, dog whisperer, television buff, mixtaper, colossus, klutz, southpaw, culinary wanna-be, cookie monster, cathedral-builder, punster, unabashed hedonist, frequent couch potato, queer husband


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2026 Winter Olympics: 6 Biggest Controversies From This Year’s Games

As the 2026 Winter Olympics passes the torch to this year’s Winter Paralympics — which start on March 6 — it’s time to look back at these Olympic Games and all their highlights and lowlights. The not-so-golden moments include gender-based exclusion, an uproar over a helmet, allegations of biased judging and cheating on the ice, and a confession of cheating off the ice. Here, we’re recapping our selections for the biggest 2026 Winter Olympics controversies since the cauldrons were lit.
Remind •

Why 'Pretty in Pink's Original Ending Got Booed

Forty years ago, moviegoers watched a teenage love triangle play out in the comedy-drama film Pretty in Pink, as the working-class Andie (Molly Ringwald) weighed her romantic prospects with fellow outsider Duckie (Jon Cryer) or upper-class love interest Blane (Andrew McCarthy). In the end — four-decade-old spoiler alert! — Andie chooses Blane, and Duckie sacrifices his own happy ending to support the new relationship. But John Hughes’ screenplay for the film didn’t originally end that way.
Remind •

Why Fred Rogers Took On His Only Acting Role Outside 'Mr. Rogers'

Fred Rogers logged hundreds of TV appearances in his persona as Mister Rogers — and not just on his long-running series Mister Rogers Neighborhood. But he only played another character on screen one time — and that rare acting role came 30 years ago, in an episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. In the CBS drama’s fourth season episode “Deal with the Devil” — which aired on February 17, 1996 — Rogers played Reverend Thomas. And the role was familiar territory for the children’s TV star...
TV Insider •

On ‘Jeopardy!’ 15 Years Ago, IBM’s Supercomputer Watson Beat Ken Jennings & Brad Rutter

Before he was the host of Jeopardy!, Ken Jennings set a record for most consecutive games won on the game show, lasting 74 games in 2004. Jennings also won the Jeopardy! Greatest of All Time tournament in 2020 against James Holzhauer and Brad Rutter, the latter of whom still holds the record for all-time Jeopardy! winnings with his nearly $5 million in prize money. But 15 years ago, both Jennings and Rutter were trounced on the game show by an IBM supercomputer called Watson.
TV Insider •

11 Worst Super Bowl Commercials of All Time, Ranked (VIDEO)

Maybe if NFL referees throw penalty flags during the ad breaks and not just during football games, we wouldn’t have ended up with the abysmal Super Bowl ads below. Every year, brands spend millions to produce and air commercials during the big game, and often, they have to issue public apologies for campaigns gone awry. GoDaddy is a frequent offender, and it earned three spots on our list of worst Super Bowl commercials of all time. See our selections here — if you can handle the cringe factor.
TV Insider •

'The One After the Superbowl': Revisiting 'Friends' Most-Watched Episode Ever

Thirty years ago, a group of Friends and a few movie stars lit up NBC after Super Bowl XXX, as nearly 53 million viewers tuned into “The One After the Superbowl” on January 28, 1996. And though no one’s saying the episode is classic Friends, it still holds the distinction of being the most-watched Super Bowl lead-out on record. But here’s what all those millions of viewers at home didn’t know…
Queerty •

It’s Transgender Awareness Week, and trans folk are sharing their stories

Every November 13 to November 19 is Transgender Awareness Week, a time to educate the public about trans identities and the fight for trans equality and safety, all of which leads up to Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20. As GLAAD explains, trans advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith created Transgender Day of Remembrance in 1999 in memory of Rita Hester, a trans woman murdered the previous year.
Queerty •

Pro tennis player João Lucas Reis served a groundbreaking coming out

Reis’ success on the court has coincided with his coming out. Late last year, he went Instagram official with his boyfriend, Brazilian actor Guilherme Ricardo. Reis posted a brief birthday message and declaration of love. “Feliz aniversário,” he wrote. “Feliz vida. Te amo muito.” (Translation: “Happy birthday. Happy life. I love you very much.”) Those seven words made Reis the first player to ever publicly come out on the men’s ATP Tour.
Queerty •

As a queer reggaetón star, RaiNao is challenging norms & leading with authenticity

If you caught Bad Bunny performing “PERFuMITO NUEVO” in the Saturday Night Live Season 50 finale, you also witnessed him trading verses with RaiNao, three years after the King of Latin Trap jumpstarted her career with a social-media endorsement of her track “LUV” and an invitation to his Un Verano Sin Ti tour stage weeks later. And now, the San Juan-raised RaiNao seems destined to follow her countryman to reggaetón superstardom, and she’s repping queer femmes all the while.
Distractify •

Albert Einstein’s Brain Traveled the Country for Decades After His Death

Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein died in 1955, but the story of his brain has continued for years now, all because of one man who took the gray matter into his own hands and kept it for decades, even crossing state lines with the brain. What happened to Einstein’s brain? Believe it or not, it was the pathologist who conducted Einstein’s autopsy who just took the brain without permission, as detailed in last year’s documentary film The Man Who Stole Einstein’s Brain.
Queerty •

Gay men sound off on the need to confront transphobia among other gay men

Hang out on Reddit long enough, and you’ll eventually see transphobic attitudes show up—explicitly and implicitly—in queer communities on the platform. And social media is, of course, a microcosm of a society which some think LGB equality is an acceptable substitute for LGBT equality. One Reddit user recently shed light on transphobia in the gay male population, saying that although he loves being gay and trans, his interactions with cis gay men “[have], by and large, been less than ideal.”
LGBTQ Nation •

Young people are coming out in huge numbers. These families found beautiful ways to support their kids.

Paria Hassouri and her husband were thousands of miles from home, on vacation in Thailand, when they got a call from their daughter’s school. A teacher told them that Ava, then 13, was questioning her gender identity. During Ava’s coming-out experience, Hassouri educated herself about how best to support her daughter. Other parents are trying to do the same, as children and teens are opening up — sometimes even earlier in their lives — about their placement in a galaxy of queer existence.
Teen Vogue •

Gender Affirming Surgeries Are Being Delayed or Canceled Because of the Coronavirus Pandemic

On March 13, the American College of Surgeons recommended hospitals across the country minimize, postpone, or cancel all scheduled elective surgeries because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As many hospitals took that advice and shed certain procedures from the books, many transgender people were left with devastating setbacks as gender-affirming surgeries were canceled or indefinitely postponed as the question of which procedures are “elective” looms.

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