News Briefs

By Tanner Pipins - Entertainment Editor

“Enough is enough:” Gov. Stitt bans state travel to California
   In January, Gov. Kevin Stitt issued an executive order to prohibit all state-funded “non-essential” travel to California. This decision was in response to California’s own ban on travel. California added Oklahoma to their travel ban in 2018 after it put in place a policy to grant private adoption agencies the right to deny placing children with certain families based on religious and moral grounds. The state of California sees this law as an anti-LGBTQ policy. California is taking their stance in support of “those that will be harmed by this prejudice policy”. In response, Stitt wants to emphasize the financial toll this policy will have on Oklahoma. “This is something
that they banned because of our values in Oklahoma,” Stitt said. “And so we’re proud of our pro-life stance, and I don’t want to spend state dollars back in California if that state is going to refuse to spend dollars in our state.”

The “Friends” reunion we have all been waiting for.
   HBO is set to launch their new streaming service (HBOMax) in May 2020, and what better way to draw attention to their upstart than promising a reunion to the TV juggernaut that is “Friends.” Just in time to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the ‘90s sitcom, the original cast is coming back to provide HBO Max streamers an exclusive, unscripted special.
   After streaming exclusively on Netflix for the last four years, WarnerMedia reclaimed its streaming rights to “Friends” for a total of $425 million at the end of 2019. The special, as well as all 236 episodes, will be available upon the streaming service’s debut. According to Variety.com, the six stars will be paid “between $2.5 million and $3 million apiece for participating in the special.” This essentially triples the then-historic $1 million per episode the cast had originally agreed to for seasons 9 and 10 of the comedy.