Hasta La Gadget!

Inspired by his own experiences, a filmmaker has created an app to help people with disabilities.

Jason Da Silva was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a disease that affects the central nervous system, in 2006, and uses a motorized scooter to get around, according to Mashable. As a filmmaker based in New York City, he quickly discovered that it wasn’t so easy for people with disabilities to maneuver around the city.

“It was very frustrating,” Da Silva told Mashable back in 2013. “I was finding that the freedoms that I had — just simple things like meeting up with friends and things, it was becoming more and more difficult.”

With these challenges in mind, Da Silva created the AXS Map, a crowdsourced mobile app and website powered by Google Maps, that allows people with disabilities to find accessible spots. Users rate and review the wheelchair accessibility of restaurants, stores, hotels and other places.

The app launched in 2012, and Alice Cook, Da Silva’s wife and executive director of his nonprofit, AXS Lab, told Fast Company that it will eventually have a social feature. Da Silva and his team also host “mapathons” during which people are invited to get together to rate and review locations.

The filmmaker told Time.com that the ratings and reviews aspect of his app is crucial. While the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act required businesses to become more accessible for people with disabilities, he said that in reality, this isn’t always the case. The reviews allow people to note specific details about the accessibility of a certain location, and then lets others know about those nuances.

Ultimately, Da Silva told Time, he hopes that his work can help more people understand the obstacles that those with disabilities face.

“People without disabilities don’t realize all the challenges that we face, like, ‘is a restroom accessible? Is there one small step outside a restaurant that would keep us from being able to get in?” Da Silva told the outlet. “Opening up the ratings to the community is an attempt to bridge the gap between people living with mobility issues and the larger communities that we live in.”

To learn more about AXS Map, visit its website here, or check out Da Silva’s nonprofit, AXS Lab here.

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MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — With a mix of elegance and irreverence, only celebrity chef Art Smith could round up his famous chef buddies, a sea of white orchids and a drag queen DJ to pull off a wedding ceremony Saturday for more than two dozen same-sex couples on Miami Beach.

Smith, a Florida native and former chef to Oprah Winfrey and Gov. Bob Graham, is revered by fellow chefs and those in the gay and lesbian community, known as the chef with a big Southern accent and an even bigger heart. When Smith heard that Florida judges had lifted the state’s ban on same-sex marriage last month, he set out to throw an over the top-wedding officiated by chef Guy Fieri, with a stunning cake from Duff Goldman, and a dance party spun by local star Chi Chi LaRue. He invited the first 101 couples to participate in the free wedding, noting he chose the number after the movie “101 Dalmatians” to shame Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has ardently fought to keep same-sex marriage from becoming legal.

“We have our own Cruella De Vil, Pam Bondi. She was determined that she was going to prevent equality from coming to Florida,” Smith said.

“For a state known for sunshine, it was living in the darkness when it came to LGBT rights and it was important to acknowledge that.”

South Beach is also memorable to Smith who met his partner, Jesus Salgueiro, here 15 years ago while in town with Winfrey. Smith went out to buy some flowers for her home. He returned with the flowers and Salgueiro, whom he married five years ago on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with a big ‘ole ceremony where Moby performed.

Nicole Griffin, 43, and Stephanie Swanson, 42, had been waiting a few years to say ‘I do.’ The Tampa couple moved from Indiana shortly before gay marriage became legal there. Friends flew in from California and Indianapolis to see the women, both wearing elegant white gowns, get married Saturday.

“(Pam Bondi) fought so hard. She denied us for so long … I think our presence today and being able to do this is a defeat of that mentality,” Swanson said.

Bondi is appealing the rulings and some county officials in more conservative areas have even stopped performing marriage ceremonies.

Seth Anderson and his partner Michael Ferguson, both 33, flew out from Utah to renew their vows. They were among the first to legally marry there two years ago, but none of their family or friends were able to attend the impromptu ceremony at the courthouse where the couple had nothing to wear but their work clothes.

“We wanted to come and be a part of this and celebrate with all the other people getting married,” Anderson said.

They were one of the couples who walked down the aisle in the courtyard of The James Royal Palm hotel as a small orchestra played. Many couples said they became emotional when Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives host Fieri, a chef with spiky hair, tattoos and a love for Southern BBQ, officiated the ceremony in honor of his late sister who was a lesbian.

It was especially emotional for 45-year-old Hugo Lopez to return to the area where he said he had previously experienced so much intolerance.

“For me to come back here to a place that felt so hostile growing up, to know this (wedding) was happening … I was terrified we were going to get turned away when we went to get our marriage license in Hialeah,” said Lopez, who married Ryan Griffin wearing matching linen suits.

The couples were showered with white rose petals thrown from the balconies and then treated to a feast of fried chicken, grilled lamb, crab-stuffed avocadoes, empanadas and a seven-tier gold and silver cake from Goldman, star of Food Network’s reality show Ace of Cakes.

“My only agenda is to celebrate this and make it true in every state,” said Goldman, who is also a gay-rights advocate. After reading of a baker who refused to make a cake for a lesbian couple a few years ago, Goldman tracked them down and made them a cake.

“We are not arbitrators of morality, we’re cake decorators,” he said.

Smith, who hosts the Big Gay Ice Cream Social at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival each year, said it had been their polite protest to the state law for years. Now they were ready to throw a wedding.

“I felt like it was important for us to show the haters, just shake it off,” he said quoting a Taylor Swift song as he moved onto the dance floor as the crowd cheered him on. “We’re gonna have a party and we’re going to show people we’re proud, we’re happy, we’re loud.

Silverstone has extended the SFX PSU form factor, letting it take a 120mm fan instead of an 80mm one, and has put out a beefy 500w model to catwalk the new size. Don’t rejoice yet, though, small form factor PC users: make sure it’ll fit in your case first.

Broody the Brain is like many of us who have yet to take up meditating: We’re intrigued by the well-documented benefits of the mindful practice, but we’ve struggled to ease into it. As a result, we assume it’s just not our thing.

But what if that struggle is due to our own misguided stereotypes of what meditation really is?

“Meditation isn’t leaving the world behind, it is being engaged, feeling content and kind,” Broody the Brain learns in the video above, created by Amit Sood, M.D., professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic and the author of The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living.

Meditation isn’t confined to any particular rules you may have heard; It can take the shape of simply thinking about what you’re grateful for when you wake up or smiling at a stranger in the elevator. The average day can be full of these “meditative micro-moments.”

If you’ve ever thought meditation wasn’t for you, check out the video above.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The foundation launched by former President Bill Clinton more than a decade ago has battled HIV and AIDS in Africa, educated millions of children and fed the poor and hungry around the globe. It also has the potential to become a political risk for Hillary Rodham Clinton as she moves toward a second presidential campaign.

The former secretary of state has struggled with some recent bad headlines over large donations given to the foundation by foreign governments in the past two years, and the $200 million-plus the organization has raised since 2013, ahead of her anticipated White House campaign.

Republicans contend that foreign governments donating to a foundation led by a potential U.S. president creates unacceptable conflicts of interests. Also, the involvement of big money reinforces a long-standing narrative pushed by the GOP of the Clintons as a couple who frequently mix business and politics.

“Unless Hillary Clinton immediately reinstates the ban on foreign countries giving to her foundation and returns the millions of dollars these governments have already donated, she’s setting an incredibly dangerous precedent,” said the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus. “The American people are not about to elect a president in Hillary Clinton who could expose them to the demands of foreign governments because they dumped massive sums of cash into her foundation.”

The foundation, which is scheduled to hold events in Morocco and Greece this spring, defended its financial support and addressed how it might function if Clinton runs for president. If she seeks office again, something taken as a given by most, the foundation said it would ensure its policies and practices are “appropriate, just as we did when she served as secretary of state.”

In 2009, when Clinton became President Barack Obama’s chief diplomat, the foundation stopped raising money from foreign governments. The fundraising involving non-U.S. entities resumed in 2013, after she left the his administration.

The Wall Street Journal last week reported the foundation had received money in 2014 from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman and others. The Washington Post reported the charity has raised nearly $2 billion since the former president started it in 2001. About one-third of its donations of $1 million or more come from foreign governments or non-U.S. entities, the newspaper found.

Democrats say the Clintons can defend their work at the foundation because of its track record and history of tackling some of the world’s biggest problems, from AIDS and clean water to hunger, educational opportunities and the protection of endangered wildlife.

They also note that the foundation voluntarily discloses its donors — nonprofits are not required to do — and say there is no evidence the Clintons have used it to enrich themselves. Nearly 90 percent of the foundation’s money goes toward its programming.

“The foundation has done amazing work,” said Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, a Democrat who campaigned with Bill Clinton last year. “It has been a unifying force in our national affairs and in our international affairs.”

Yet the influx of corporate and foreign money just before a potential Hillary Clinton campaign has caused some anxiety within her party.

“There was a reason they stopped taking foreign government donations when Hillary was secretary of state,” said Mike Carberry, a Johnson County, Iowa, supervisor and former county Democratic chairman. He said the foundation should reinstate the policies used from 2009 to 2013. “It doesn’t seem right.”

The foundation has strong ties with several corporations and other large foundations. Last September’s annual meeting in New York was sponsored by an array of companies that regularly lobby the federal government, including financial firms HSBC Bank USA, Barclays and Deutsche Bank, as well as Fortune 500 companies such as Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Monsanto, Procter & Gamble and ExxonMobil.

Goldman Sachs, whose corporate officers have played leading roles in the Treasury Department in recent years, has worked with the Clinton Foundation on the 10,000 Women Initiative aimed at helping female entrepreneurs around the globe access capital.

Many of the same donors to the Clintons’ political campaigns have given money to the foundation. Dennis Cheng, a former Hillary Clinton campaign fundraiser, recently left the foundation as its chief development officer and is expected to be a top fundraiser for her expected campaign.

The examination of the foundation’s finances come as many Democrats want Clinton to take on a more populist economic agenda that would demand more oversight of Wall Street firms. It also follows efforts by Democrats to scrutinize Republican Mitt Romney’s business practices in 2012 and tie Republican candidates to millions of dollars provided by the Koch Brothers and their business interests.

Beyond the headlines, many Democrats say it shows the need for Clinton to begin actively campaigning and build an apparatus better suited to rapidly respond to these types of critiques.

“There’s a vacuum,” said Tom Henderson, the chairman of the Polk County, Iowa, Democrats, who noted potential candidates such as former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb are visiting soon. “She isn’t doing anything” in Iowa, he said.

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