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Talk about doing something foolish and dangerous! With the major concern about the COVD-19 coronavirus outbreak and the ensuing hysteria, Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert playfully touched all of the microphones and phones from the media after participating at a press conference. (Yes, there’s video.)

A couple of days later, Gobert tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Video shows Rudy Gobert, an NBA player who reportedly tested positive for coronavirus, touching microphones with his hands after speaking with reporters on Monday https://t.co/ekxauQo8KV pic.twitter.com/pd7Q9vJkCz

— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 12, 2020

Source: Prince Williams / Getty

Chicago-bred rapper G Herbo has come a long way, not only in terms of his success in Hip-Hop, but also when it comes to his health and happiness.

It wasn’t that long ago that the 24-year-old was struggling with drugs and an addiction to Percocet and lean. He had witnessed his first murder when he was eight and was shot at 16. He felt after a while that his was a normal upbringing, and instead of going to therapy about it all, for years, he would deal with everything by taking drugs.

“I was an addict. I have an addictive personality. I used to drink a lot of lean, I used to pop a lot of pills depending on how I felt at the moment, so I knew, the same way I was in the streets and I knew I could die in the streets, I could die from drug abuse and addiction every day I did it,” he said during a recent interview with The Breakfast Club. He would eventually start going to therapy and checked himself in twice to a detox treatment center. “Of course, I don’t want to die, [and I thought] ‘That ain’t gon’ be me,’ but I knew I could. So I moved accordingly, and it was really my son. My son was the reason I went.”

But others haven’t been so lucky. In December, Juice Wrld, another popular Chicago rapper that G Herbo knew well, died from an overdose of painkillers. G Herbo admitted there were times where things got scary for him, too. During those moments, he said girlfriend Taina Williams would be by his side and stay by it.

“I ain’t gon lie. It’s been times where I used to wake up in the middle of my sleep, couldn’t breathe, stuff like that. I never really told people,” he said. “My girl seen it before. I couldn’t breathe in the middle of the night, stuff like that. Sweats…so you know it’s real. I was going through something where I lost one of my best friends in 2018, and I started back getting real high. I swear I was getting so high, bro, I was literally in the crib and I was falling asleep as I was going down the stairs in the house.”

Williams, on the other hand, doesn’t touch drugs, so it wasn’t easy for her to watch him struggle.

“She don’t do nothin’. She hated it, she hated every minute of it. But again, we from two different worlds,” he said. “I had to tell her, this is where I came from. I literally been doing this stuff since I was 15 years old. I’ve been addicted to lean, Xanax, pills, since I was 15 years old.”

Nevertheless, she supported him as he tried to get himself together, and didn’t tell her mother, Emily B, or stepfather, rapper Fabolous, that G Herbo was on drugs so that he could get a fair shot with them.

“She didn’t [say anything]. She’s real family oriented, so she’s close with her mom and dad. She’s close with her grandparents, but yeah, she didn’t like it all. She didn’t want them to judge me because she knew what type of person I was, but it’s hard to explain that to [somebody else],” he said.

Thankfully, now he’s clean and deals with his pain and stress in a healthier way, though Williams is still a big part of it.

“I just lean towards it. I ain’t gon lie,” he said. “I always got somebody to vent to, that’s why my girl feel like she get the crazy in me because you’ve got to vent to somebody. When you come home you want that serenity, that peace, so you’ve got to let it all out. She feel like she might get it the most or the worst because it’s like, I don’t show my emotion to the world, I only show my emotion to people I care about. She handle it well, I ain’t gon lie.”

G Herbo says he is looking to help other young men like him in Chicago, and has no intentions of turning to drugs again.

“I’d be a fool if I went back to doing the same thing I was doing,” he said.

Interesting enough, back in February, fellow rapper Fabolous said that he always tried to give G Herbo a chance when he started dating his stepdaughter, because he was aware of the way people view rappers.

“Of course I was watchful, but I tried not to be judgmental ’cause I know how we’re judged,” he said on T.I.’s podcast ExpediTIously. “I know from just walking in a room and you having the title of a rapper, automatically, the bad boy, you doing wrong, infidelity. And that’s not to say those titles — every stereotype comes from experience. It don’t come out of nowhere, so I do understand it. But at the same time, let me not judge him until I know him. That’s what I wanted to do with him.”

G Herbo and Taina Williams have been together since late 2018, early 2019. He shares a son with ex-girlfriend and Instagram personality Ariana Fletcher.

They all have a million secrets. What’s so bad about this one? The St. Catherine’s drama club is struggling to put up its first school play – Sophocles’ “Antigone.” As if staging this tragedy in an all-girls Catholic school isn’t challenging enough, the cast’s beloved director ends up betraying them in an unforgivable way — […]

Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine - Photo Cr: Matt Kennedy/CBS

It’s amazing how a single cameo can make Star Trek: Picard feel like The Next Generation never ended. After Riker’s fantastic appearance last week, all I want is to watch more Star Trek. This episode is a stark contrast to last week’s idyllic setting though. As great as Riker’s retirement looks, things aren’t so peaceful elsewhere on the show. Cornered in the Queen cell, Elnor put out a distress call to Seven of Nine. She arrives just in time too. As a squad of Romulan soldiers momentarily blind him before attacking, it looks like a fight he might lose. Just before the soldiers kill Elnor, Seven of Nine makes her grand entrance, taking them all down. How did this character get so much cooler between Voyager and now? Not that I’m complaining.

Turns out that’s nothing compared to what comes later. As they head into the Queen cell, Seven of Nine steals the Borg cube. Which, as a former Borg, she’s able to do. As soon as she does that, the cube starts repairing itself, much to the dismay of Narissa. What Seven has to do next is a little dicier. She finds that the cube is full of Borg who haven’t been revived yet. They’ve been cut off from the collective, but haven’t regained their consciousness. She could use them to create her own localized collective, but she’s afraid she wouldn’t want to let them go afterwards. That she would become the new Borg Queen. Narissa forces her hand though, when she starts slaughtering XBs. Seven plugs into the Borg cube and awakens all the remaining Borg. I have to say, watching her eyes go black and green and hearing “We are the Borg” was actually scary.

Evan Evagora as Elnor; Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine – Photo Cr: Matt Kennedy/CBS

Narissa ejects most of the newly awakened Borg into space, but it looks like she didn’t account for all of them. As the Romulans prepare to leave the cube and head to Soji’s home planet, the remaining Borg systematically take out her guards. Narissa manages to phaser a few of them, but they overwelm her and tear her apart. It looks like something out of a zombie movie. I guess that’s what happens when Seven’s angry. There’s a brief moment where we’re not sure if Seven will actually give up the power. Elnor even thinks she’ll assimilate him. The Borg says that Annika still has work to do and releases her. I like that bit of tension, and I wish it lasted longer. Star Trek is at its most interesting when it’s about someone struggling with great power. There’s a little bit of that here, but it’s solved too quickly. Oh well, I guess the episode had enough going on as it is.

Meanwhile, back on the ship, Raffi’s figured out most of what was going on with Jurati. That she killed Bruce Maddox and put herself in a coma to destroy the tracker inside her. Unfortunately, Raffi thinks that means Jurati’s a Romulan spy. I mean, that’s what she’s being used as, but she doesn’t know that. It’s all too much for Rios, who freaks out seeing Soji aboard his ship. Picard asks for a secure channel to Starfleet and a course to Deep Space 12. He needs a squadron with him if he’s going up against the Tal Shiar. Rios says he’ll take them to DS12, but that’s as far as he goes. He’s quitting.

Santiago Cabrera as Cristobal Rios; Isa Briones as Soji; Michelle Hurd as Raffi – Photo Cr: Matt Kennedy/CBS

This sends Raffi on a ship-wide search to find out what exactly is going on with Rios. He locked himself in his quarters and left his ship’s AIs in charge of everything. They’re all modeled after Rios, but each with their own ridiculous accent and personality. They also have random bits of memory deleted. Like Rios was trying to forget something. He did a sloppy job though, as each one remembers a little piece of something. Still not enough to tell Raffi everything, but enough that she can start to put it together. It’s a fun, comedic bit in the middle of the episode, and as soon as it’s over we see why it was there. The show was preparing us for the infodump to follow.

Yes, we’re about to go to Soji’s homeworld next week, so Picard realized it needed to get us all up to speed now. It turns out the incident that ended in Rios’ discharge from Starfleet involved two synthetics. One of whom looked exactly like Soji. They were from the planet Maddox escaped to after the ban. Rios’ captain welcomed them in, but after a call from Commodore Oh, killed them both and then himself. That’s what drove Rios into depression.

Santiago Cabrera as Crist–bal Rios; Michelle Hurd as Raffi; Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard; Alison Pill as Agnes Jurati; Isa Briones as Soji – Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS

From there, the rest of the crew pieces together the whole story behind the Synth ban. The Tal Shiar found a warning that Synth life would eventually create a destroyer. An android that surpassed human ability. That android would bring about the destruction of their world. The Tal Shair took that warning seriously, forming the Zhat Vash to hunt down synthetic life. To do that, a half-Vulcan, half-Romulan named Oh infiltrated Starfleet. Then, they carried out the attack on Mars to force Starfleet to outlaw all synthetic life. The attack was a Romulan opperation. I loved this scene. Yes, it was all people sitting around vomiting exposition, but it was done well. People sitting around monologuing at one another is compelling TV when the actors are all this good. Picard even gets in some words of wisdom as he always does. One single person can’t possibly be the destroyer. The true destroyer is fear. Yeah, that’s the kind of philosophizing I expect from the Captain of the Enterprise-D.

This episode wasn’t the action-packed thriller I was expecting after last week’s trip to Riker’s place. It didn’t need to be, though. Picard finally answered questions we’ve had since episode one. And it found a fun, engrossing way to do it. The show has a fantastic cast, and they all got to flex their muscles here. I didn’t realize it, but this is what I was hoping for from Star Trek: Picard from the beginning: A bunch of great actors doing their job very well. Next week, we head to Soji’s home planet. After their conversation, Soji decides she needs to warn the people there, and they don’t have time to wait around DS12 for a squadron to escort them. That’s going to make the mission much more dangerous, but where would the fun be if it wasn’t?

Star Trek: Picard streams Thursdays on CBS All Access.

Previously on Star Trek: Picard:

• Star Trek: Picard Season 1 Episode 7 recap
• Star Trek: Picard Season 1 Episode 6 recap
• Star Trek: Picard Season 1 Episode 5 recap