Month: November 2021

Enlarge / A street sign showing the cancellation of the AstroWorld Festival at NRG Park on November 6, 2021 in Houston, Texas. Eight people died and 25 people were hospitalized after a crowd surge during the performance of rapper and musician Travis Scott. (credit: Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty Images))

The Astroworld music festival in Houston, Texas, kicked off last Friday, but tragedy struck when Grammy-nominated rapper Travis Scott—who launched the festival in 2018—took to the stage around 9 pm. The enthusiastic crowd surged toward the stage and packed the mosh pit so tightly that people couldn't breathe and began to pass out. There was no space to move, and in the end, at least eight people were killed, and another 25 were hospitalized.

Concert promoter Live Nation issued a statement saying it was "heartbroken for those lost and impacted at Astroworld," and the company pledged its full cooperation with local authorities who are investigating. As for Houston native Scott, he pronounced himself "just devastated" in a video posted to his Instagram account last Saturday night and said he had not realized how severe the situation had become from his vantage point onstage. The rapper seems equally reluctant to take the stage in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy: Scott has reportedly canceled a planned set at the hiphop "Day N Vegas" festival, with sources telling Vulture the rapper is "too distraught to play."

There is still a great deal we don't know about the conditions at Astroworld and what actually happened that night, pending the results of an official investigation. But deadly crowd surges are a far too common occurrence all over the world. For instance, back in 1979, 11 people were trampled to death during a Who concert in Cincinnati. In 2000, nine people were trampled to death at a Pearl Jam concert during Denmark's Roskilde Festival. And in April of this year in Meron, Israel, 45 people died in a crush at the Lag B'Omer religious festival, with 150 more injured.

Enlarge / Quarterback Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers trots off the field following the NFL game at State Farm Stadium on October 28, 2021, in Glendale, Arizona. (credit: Getty | Christian Petersen)

Fallout continues for NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers, who tossed out a smorgasbord of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and nearly every line from the 2021 anti-vaccine playbook in the course of a single 45-minute interview Friday.

Since then, the Green Bay Packers' quarterback has lost his position as a spokesperson for Wisconsin-based healthcare organization Prevea Health. Insurance giant State Farm has also significantly cut back on ads that include him. And, now, the NFL is disputing his claim that league doctors provided him with bunk vaccine information.

Rodgers—who is unvaccinated and tested positive for COVID-19 last week—appeared on the The Pat McAfee Show Friday afternoon to address the growing scandal around his vaccination status. He also took the opportunity to rail against COVID-19 vaccines, NFL health policies, and the "woke mob."

Enlarge / Play it loud with Microsoft's newest game-specific Xbox gamepad. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

While Ars Technica is in the loop about a lot of gamepad launches, we mostly look at gamepads that offer significant features and upgrades. Those features can boil down to accessibility, luxury, value, quirkiness, or dramatically new gimmicks.

In today's case, however, I can't help but gush over a controller that feels remarkably humdrum in some aspects, yet absolutely goes for it on an aesthetic basis. If you pine for '90s-era interfaces when loud colors and transparent plastic ruled the gamepad fray, this week's launch of the Forza Horizon 5 Xbox Wireless Controller is for you.

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  The new controller's box. [credit: Sam Machkovech ]

This official variant of the Xbox Wireless Controller (the name of the gamepad's latest, Series X-adjacent revision, complete with a "share" button) comes at an MSRP of $74.99. The $15 premium over the default gamepad's MSRP is primarily thanks to a very loud and unique color design, which largely resembles the colorful video game of the same name. (Otherwise, this works just like other XWCs, and it includes compatibility with both the Xbox 2.4 GHz wireless standard and Bluetooth.) The entire front face consists of transparent, yellow plastic, though roughly half of this is covered with a handsomely laser-printed paint splatter. The fact that the design looks as sharply printed as the facsimile on the box is a testament to whatever printing process Microsoft is using for its gamepads.