NEWS: Take a Look at Rio's Olympic Venues Just Six Months After the Games/ Shia LaBeouf’s Anti-Trump Exhibit Comes to a Close/ Odell Beckham Jr. Was Robbed During Super Bowl Weekend

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                              

The 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro arguably were one of the most controversial in recent memory.

Aside from constant issues with the pools, the Ryan Lochte debacle, and

Olympians having limits placed on their McDonald’s orders, the

funding and construction of the venues were constantly in question.
Now, just six months after the 2016 Summer Games, a large number of venues used for the

festivities and competitions have tumbled into a state of despondency. Most notably the

Maracanã Stadium where soccer matches took place has been looted and destroyed; the

Games precinct has shut down; two arenas, the velodrome and tennis center have closed; and

the Olympic golf course is struggling in disarray. Of the 78,000 seats in the stadium, nearly

10% have been reportedly torn up while windows have been smashed, copper wiring stolen

from walls and ceilings, and the playing surface allowed to deteriorate. Power has also been cut

due to unpaid bills tallying $940,000 USD which most likely aided thieves who’ve looted fire

extinguishers, hoses, TVs, and a bronze bust of Mario Filho, the journalist for whom the stadium

was named for.
In an interview with AAP, Theresa Williamson, executive director of Catalytic Communities —

a Rio-based non-government organization which provides support to favela communities said,

“The legacy is incredibly poor, this all coincided with the economic recession but in Rio, just like

the boom here was more intense because of the Olympics, now the fall is more intense because of

the Olympics. Everybody here is suffering right now, of all incomes and all stripes and colours.”

She also noted that about 80,000 of Rio’s poor were removed from their homes to make way for

the Games. “For the most part, they now live in worse situations than they did before – and these

were already the poor in a very unequal city,” she said. “People are overwhelmingly not well.

Everybody you talk to is struggling in some sense.”
Check out the photos above to see for yourself the situation in Rio.

SourceThe Guardian

PhotographerPilar Olivares / Reuters         

To show his disapproval of Trump’s presidency, Shia LaBeouf initiated a special art exhibit of sorts

that protests the new POTUS’s inauguration. The project, in collaboration with Nastja Säde Rönkkö

and Luke Turner, was planned to last for four years (the length of Trump’s term). The main purpose

was to allow people to come to the Museum of Moving Image to join LaBeouf in screaming the words

“He will not divide us” into cameras for a live stream.
However, in only after three weeks, the museum has decided to shut the installation down because they

feel it has become “a flashpoint for violence.” There has been countless footage of neo-Nazis coming

to troll and terrorize the people and the space. LaBeouf even got

into an altercation with someone and ended up in jail.
A statement from the museum further explains that, “While the installation began constructively,

it deteriorated markedly after one of the artists was arrested on the site of the installation and

ultimately necessitated this action.”
“Over the course of the installation,” it further reads, “there have been dozens of threats of violence

and numerous arrests, such that police felt compelled to be stationed outside the installation 24 hours

a day, seven days a week.”
As for LaBeouf, he only had the tweet below to respond with:

Sources close to Odell Beckham Jr. recently told Page Six that the Giants’ star wide receiver was

robbed of his belongings last weekend. Beckham who was in Houston to host as pre-Super Bowl

commentator was rumored to have been mugged of cash and jewelry just outside. However, a closer

source claims the incident wasn’t nearly dramatic. He had apparently left a bag at a friend’s house

which happened to get broken into shortly after; “He just had some stuff there…shoes and that sort

of thing. It wasn’t anything expensive — just some of his belongings.” No reports have apparently

been filed.