Marvel Games isn’t forcing its developers to tie their video games into existing Marvel Cinematic Universe storylines. This might sound weird, given how interconnected the MCU has been over the past decade, but it’s actually a blessing in disguise.
We Are the Robots:
Is the Future of
Music Artificial?
Jack Needham,
FACT
Artificial intelligence is invading more of our lives by the day and it’s going to work making music as well. FACT takes a look at the use of robots for creative exploits and…
And so it begins. The first big press conference of MWC 2017 is all about BlackBerry, specifically the so-called “Mercury.” We were pretty big fans when we first met the QWERTY keyboard-packing phone at CES, a lot of you were too — hopefully today’s…
Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.) faced angry questions over his refusal to demand an independent investigation into President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia during a Saturday town hall packed with hundreds of constituents.
Most of a 900-seat auditorium at Raritan Valley Community College was filled on Saturday, according to NJ.com. Lance, the only Republican member of Congress to hold a town hall in the state this week, drew shouting from the audience when he repeatedly declined to support efforts to launch a Russia inquiry.
“At the moment, I favor the investigations that are occurring by the two intelligence committees, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee,” he told the audience.
He said he was encouraged by the fact that Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, and its Vice Chairman Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) had together sent a letter to the White House requesting the it preserve documents regarding possible involvement between the Trump administration or the his presidential campaign and the Russian government.
“It’s my experience that the intelligence committees work in a bipartisan fashion,” Lance added.
His insistence that the House and Senate Intelligence committees would look into the matter prompted audience members to shout, “Read The Washington Post!” On Friday, the Post reported that the White House had asked the chairman of the House and Senate intelligence committee to counter news reports about Trump’s ties to Russia.
One man in the audience asked Lance whether he would sponsor legislation to compel Trump to release his tax returns. When Lance simply said he thought the president should release the documents, the audience began chanting “yes or no!”
Lance eventually said he did not think there should be legislation forcing Trump to release the documents.
“Congressman, we expect you to put your country before your party,” said the man who asked the question also reminding Lance that he was up for re-election next year. Lance is one of several New Jersey Republicans that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is targeting in next year’s cycle.
The crowd also got loud when Lance declined to condemn White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who has been accused of anti-Semitism and previously led Breitbart, which gives a platform to white nationalists. Nor did Lance call for the Trump adviser’s removal from the National Security Council.
The congressman said he believed the president could decide whom he wanted to appoint to the NSC and that he trusted H.R. McMaster, the president’s new national security adviser, would give him advice.
“We think you need to lead us, we think you need to decide. We rely on you,” the woman who asked the question said. The crowd also broke into a chant of “renounce Steve Bannon.”
The White House and many Republicans have tried to discredit recent outrage at Republican town halls across the country by claiming the people attending them are professional protesters or paid to heckle. There is no evidence to support that claim, and Lance said at his Saturday town hall that he didn’t think anyone in the audience was paid to be there.
Lance also held a town hall Wednesday, but he scheduled Saturday’s event because demand for another one earlier this week was so high, according to Politico. Constituents at the town hall on Wednesday asked him similar pointed questions.
Protesters also showed up outside Lance’s Saturday town hall.
The congressman also acknowledged that many Republicans across the country were choosing not to hold town halls this week. One of the ways he believed members could clean up Washington, D.C., was to be given more time to spend in their districts, he said.
“I think it’s an important part of my responsibility that I hold town hall meetings,” he added.
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The son of the late boxing great Muhammad Ali was detained at a Florida airport this month and asked about his religious preferences, a family friend says.
Muhammad Ali Jr., 44, was returning to the U.S. from Jamaica with his mother, Khalilah Camacho-Ali, when customs pulled them aside at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Feb. 7 for questioning, Chris Mancini, a family friend and lawyer, told the Courier-Journal Friday.
Customs officials let Camacho-Ali proceed once she produced a photo of herself with her former husband Muhammad Ali, but since Ali Jr. did not have such a photo, they detained him for almost two hours. During his detention, he says officials asked him questions like “Where did you get your name from?” and “Are you Muslim?”
Ali Jr., who like his late father is Muslim, is an American citizen with no criminal record. He was carrying a U.S. passport with him at the time of his detention.
“This is an outrage,” said Mancini, who is a former federal prosecutor. “I don’t know what is going on with Mr. Trump’s claim that his ban is not religion-based. We do not discriminate in this country based on religion.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly contended that his executive order banning refugees and people from seven predominately Muslim countries is “not a Muslim ban.” A federal judge blocked the order was blocked days before Ali Jr. was detained.
“What right does the United States have to inquire about somebody’s religion when they enter the country?” Mancini said. “This is an instance where the ban has been enforced even though it has been thrown out. The government is still trying to find grounds to keep Muslims out.”
Multiple outlets have reached out to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection for comment, which has simply said, “Due to the restrictions of the Privacy Act, U.S. Customs and Border Protection cannot discuss individual travelers; however, all international travelers arriving in the U.S. are subject to CBP inspection.”
The Ali family is considering filing a federal lawsuit.
“To the Ali family, it’s crystal clear that this is directly linked to Mr. Trump’s efforts to ban Muslims from the United States,” Mancini added.
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After much pressure, President Donald Trump finally conceded this week that the rise in anti-Semitism around the country “has to stop.” But some American Muslims are wondering ― does the president have our back, too?
Since Trump entered the White House, mosques have been vandalized and even set on fire, a prominent Muslim civil rights leader has been threatened with physical assault, and Muslim university students have been targeted with racist fliers and propaganda.
This Islamophobia is nothing new. Last year, The Huffington Post tracked 385 anti-Muslim acts in the United States, ranging from verbal harassment to physical abuse.
But Trump and his administration has had very little to say that would reassure America’s 3.3 million Muslims that their leaders, institutions, and sacred spaces are safe.
Corey Saylor, a leader at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that this organization is waiting on Trump to speak out, after a significant rise in anti-Muslim incidents over the past year.
“It is [Trump’s] duty to repudiate bias. President Bush went to a mosque to push back against anti-Islam sentiment in 2001,” Saylor told HuffPost in an email. “We are still waiting for President Trump to demonstrate the same leadership.”
Trump’s inability to understand the fears and concerns of American Muslims was apparent even before he won the election. During a presidential debate, when an American Muslim asked him directly how he would combat Islamophobia, he turned the question into an opportunity to rant about “radical Islamic terrorism” ― glazing over the woman’s concerns about anti-Muslim bigotry.
This week, American Muslims saw that attitude reappear in the White House. A reporter asked White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer about the rise in anti-Muslim hate groups during a press conference this week. But Spicer dodged the question, speaking instead about “radical Islamic terrorism.” Like his boss, he ignored the fact that Islamophobic groups are fueling hatred and even calling for violence against American citizens.
Catherine Orsborn is the campaign director of Shoulder to Shoulder, an interfaith organization dedicated to ending anti-Muslim bigotry. She told HuffPost that it’s clear from Spicer’s comments that there is a “there is a huge disconnect between what our fellow Americans are facing, in terms of anti-Muslim hate incidents, and how the administration is thinking about these issues.”
“They’re not demonstrating any level of concern for American Muslims to live in peace and security,” Orsborn said. “And we need our government to not only speak out against attacks on Muslims, but also show by their actions they they do indeed respect the rights and freedoms of American Muslims as part of the fabric of our country.”
On the campaign trail, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” which has since morphed into a travel ban that targets refugees and people from seven Muslim-majority countries. In the past, he’s claimed that “Islam hates us” and that refugees from the Middle East are “trying to take our children.”
Reports of anti-Muslim harassment spiked immediately after the election, with some leaders claiming that Trump’s rhetoric has emboldened hate groups.
At the same time, anti-Semitism has also been on the rise. The Anti-Defamation League has recorded a troubling rise in hate speech against Jewish journalists online. After the election, several schools and universities reported anti-Semitic vandalism on their campuses. And since Jan. 9, at least 69 bomb threats have been called into 55 Jewish Community Centers across the country. While no bombs were recovered from these locations, the repeated phone threats have caused fear and aggravation in the Jewish community.
Rabiah Ahmed, communications director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, told HuffPost that she holds Trump and his administration accountable for the increase in hate crimes against Jews, Muslims, and other minorities.
“It is their divisive rhetoric that has emboldened many to act out on their biases and feel justified in doing so,” Ahmed wrote in an email. “And it is their responsibility to undo this increasing tide of hate that we are witnessing.”
The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect is one of the Jewish organizations that have been calling for the administration to speak out on the rise of anti-Semitism in the country. The center called Trump’s statement against anti-Semitism a “pathetic asterisk of condescension.”
Just as we saw the President denounce anti-Semitism earlier this week, albeit far overdue, we demand and expect the same be stated when it comes to anti-Muslim bigotry.
Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner
And like CAIR, the center is also waiting for Trump to speak out against the abuse that Muslims have had to face.
“The President’s Islamophobia, marked by his repeated phony portrayals of Muslims as more prone to terrorism than others, is responsible for creating the incubator of hate that foments the crimes we are seeing against Muslims in America today,” executive director Steven Goldstein told HuffPost.
Goldstein said that he was “devastated”, but not surprised, by the President’s silence in condemning anti-Muslim attacks. He called it the silence a “double-barreled danger” to Jews and Muslims.
“We have no pecking order in which we fight Antisemitism first, and Islamophobia and other hatred second,” he said. “We have to save every Anne. Never again must mean never again to anyone. Never again is now.”
Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, also called out Trump’s silence on anti-Muslim bigotry.
“Just as we saw the President denounce anti-Semitism earlier this week, albeit far overdue, we demand and expect the same be stated when it comes to anti-Muslim bigotry,” Pesner told HuffPost.
Orbsorn said that while a condemnation of Islamophobia is critical, interfaith activists like her need to see “more than words.”
“We need to see action that demonstrates that American Muslim rights are given the same respect as that that should be given to Americans of any other religious faith or background,” she said. “So, yes, we need to hear the condemnation of Islamophobia, but we’re going to need more than words as well to stop the waves of hate crimes.”
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People have been wondering what folksinger/activists, some of them septuagenarians like Noel Paul Stookey and me, might be doing in the face of the current cataclysmic challenges to our democracy and our nation.
The answer is simple: we are going to keep on keeping on. We inherited a legacy from Woody, Pete Seeger and the Weavers and many others who inspired us. They never quit, never stopped and never stopped advocating. Doing so is “in our blood” and it’s a great gift to both Noel and me, as it would be to Mary – were she still to be with us. She would join, even (or maybe especially) at our advanced age, the current advocacies that “hammer out a warning”, “ring out danger” and “sing about the love between our brothers and our sisters”. No, we’ve not “gone away”. We, and others who also come from the folk music/activist tradition, are solidly committed to using our music to generate community and consensus at our concerts and at gatherings and demonstrations to confront the most dangerous of challenges now threatening our country.
I have written, and currently perform, two songs that have come out of the presidential campaign and its results, one being The Children Are Listening and the other being, Lift Us Up. I am grateful that, in a limited context (for sure) both of these songs have become rallying points for efforts to assert what is good in ourselves and what is reprehensible and frightening in the face of the recent election.
By far the most important effort yet, by either Noel Paul or me – in terms of its reach and, in my opinion, its brilliance – is Impeachable, a parody Noel wrote of the song Unforgettable, which was a huge hit by Nat King Cole from the early 1950s. Impeachable was just released on the internet and went viral with, currently, over 800,000 hits. (Please share this link with your buddies and help us spread the message.)
Impeachable is an example of Noel’s extraordinary ability to write a super-funny, very surprising yet also, highly nuanced, lyric. He is, and has always been, an amazing songwriter. In its first public performance last weekend Impeachable brought the audience at our concert in Thousand Oaks, CA to its feet with a prolonged standing ovation. There were screeches of delight the likes of which I have never before heard at a Peter Paul and Mary concert.
Noel has clearly struck a hugely resonant chord amongst those who heard the hammer strokes warning of a grave danger to our nation, our democracy and, in fact, the whole earth.
Impeachable is a new twist on the kinds of songs that Peter Paul and Mary were singing that helped to mobilize Americans at the time of the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement. Blowing In the Wind and If I Had a Hammer written by Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger & Lee Hays, respectively, were anthems that brought folks together in ways that let them recognize, in very personal ways, their collective strength as well as reassert a commonly held ethical/political perspective. Such was also the case with Where Have All the Flowers Gone and a myriad of other songs. With their repetition at rallies, marches and on the radio, these songs inspired many newcomers to the world of activism who asserted to us that our music, and that of our fellow folk musicians, became the “sound track of their political awakening”. (In our view, this is one of the greatest compliments we ever received.)
Today, of course, the dominant transmission of such advocacies comes through social media, though in-person efforts such as The Women’s March on Washington, and the demonstrations at Standing Rock that electrified the nation are still, I believe, the most powerful tools for social/political mobilization.
Also, there is another new aspect to a musician’s, or an actor’s, or any artist’s efforts in the realm of advocacy. In this time, humor, as offered by the likes of John Oliver, the gifted cast and guests, such as the amazing Alec Baldwin, on Saturday Night Live, Samantha Bee, Melissa McCarthy, Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah, to name just a few, has played a huge role in inspiring and activating the spirit of our nation. It cuts through the extreme “noise” in tweets, frightening pronouncement and actions emanating from the current administration,
Please take heart my friends. From my travels, I have found that there has been a huge call to action heeded, even (and emphatically) in my and Noel’s elder demographic. Be assured that a large body of former artist-activists is mobilizing now with their songs, their poetry, their heart-rending videos, their humor and their visual work on signs and memes that spread across the internet with ever more amazing directness, humor, and determination. As long as this continues to build, we’re walking together and gaining strength. Let’s carry it on, my friends.
In solidarity and love,
Peter
Impeachable
By Noel Paul Stookey
Impeachable, that’s what you are…
Impeachable, and yet so far…
You’ve avoided closer scrutiny
And even though Vlad-i-mer Putin, he
Opens many doors, it only makes you more…
Impeachable, and when, some day
We can say ‘you’re fired’ and you go away
You may have thought you were unreachable (but) history makes some moments teachable:
Someday Pence may be impeachable too
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As millions of Zimbabweans grapple with food shortages and malnutrition, President Robert Mugabe is throwing himself an extravagant party on Saturday to celebrate his 93rd birthday.
Local media say at least 100,000 people are expected to attend the lavish event in the Bulawayo region, which has been ranked the “worst city in Africa.”
Organizers have promised the celebrations will be “Africa’s biggest party,” according to a BBC radio report. Some 150 cattle have been slaughtered as a feast for celebrants, and numerous cakes have been prepared. Some schools in the region have been shut down. Costs of the party have been estimated at near $1 million.
Just last year, the president declared a national state of emergency after an extreme drought left 5 million people ― half the country’s rural population ― enduring severe food shortages. The United Nations said Zimbabwe faced its worst malnutrition rates in 15 years.
The ruling ZANU-PF party reportedly forced several schools and impoverished families in the area to provide donations for Mugabe’s grand party. Earlier in the month, ZANU-PF lawmaker Never Khanye was quoted saying that farmers who received a letters “must donate a beast each for this event, and those that will fail [to do so], we will take it [to mean] that they don’t appreciate what the president has done for them.”
A joint letter from three Zimbabwean civil society groups called the party’s actions a “disturbing if not unconstitutional” abuse of power.
People also are angry that the celebration is taking place near the graves of thousands of people killed by forces loyal to Mugabe in the early 1980s.
Regional security has been heightened to quash anti-Mugabe protests during the festivities.
The elderly leader, whose actual birthday was on Tuesday, has been in power since white-minority rule ended in 1980, and has vowed to stand for re-election next year despite growing concerns about this health.
Speculation has grown over who will replace him after his death, but Mugabe announced Saturday that his party will choose a successor when the time comes. He has also said that he wishes to live until he is 100 and rule for life.
Jesselyn covers world news for The Huffington Post. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Transgender model Isis King tweeted a blunt open letter to Caitlyn Jenner on Friday after the reality star criticized the Trump administration’s decision to rescind Obama-era guidance that protected transgender students in public schools.
King, the first openly transgender contestant to compete on “America’s Next Top Model,” calls out Jenner in the letter, referencing an incident at the TransNation Queen USA Pageant in October in which Jenner allegedly ignored King’s presence, then cut in front of her to take an empty elevator for herself and her team.
“I could not believe that this happened to me and immediately felt as if I had just been asked to move to the back of the bus,” King writes in the letter. “It was as if I was not good enough, not worthy enough, not rich enough, not famous enough to ride with these three white women. … The amount of privilege that was thrown in my face made me feel so uncomfortable.”
King seemed to suggest that the insult represents a larger issue in the trans community when it comes to power, privilege and visibility: “I have, like so many women of color, helped blazed [sic] trails for our sisters, brothers and siblings, and I have seen how you treated me. We do not need you to save us.”
On Thursday, Jenner tweeted a video message directed at President Donald Trump “from one Republican to another,” calling Trump’s blow to the rights of trans students a “disaster” and telling the president “we’ll see you in court.”
The video was met with harsh criticism from parts of the LGBTQ community. Jenner was an outspoken supporter of Trump during the 2016 election ― even attending his inauguration.
James Michael Nichols is a queer writer and cultural critic whose work focuses heavily on the intersections of identity, art and politics. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
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NEW YORK, Feb 25 (Reuters) – Billionaire Warren Buffett, whose stock picks over several decades have enriched generations of Berkshire Hathaway Inc shareholders, delivered a black eye to the investment industry on Saturday, urging ordinary investors to buy plain-vanilla index funds.
“When trillions of dollars are managed by Wall Streeters charging high fees, it will usually be the managers who reap outsized profits, not the clients,” Buffett said in his annual letter to shareholders.
“Both large and small investors should stick with low-cost index funds,” he added.
Buffett, 86, used his investment savvy to build Berkshire into a powerhouse conglomerate and become the world’s second-richest person. Known to fans as “the Oracle of Omaha,” he estimated that the search for outperformance has caused investors to “waste” more than $100 billion over the past decade.
On Saturday, he called Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle “a hero” for his early efforts to popularize index funds.
Berkshire itself has done far better, with its stock price gaining 20.8 percent per year since Buffett took over in 1965, dwarfing the Standard & Poor’s 500’s 9.7 percent gain, including dividends.
Yet Buffett said most stock investors are better off with low-cost index funds than paying higher fees to managers who often underperform.
In 2014, Buffett said he plans to put 90 percent of the money he leaves to his wife Astrid when he dies into an S&P 500 index fund, and 10 percent in government bonds.
During the financial crisis, Buffett bet a founder of the asset management company Protege Partners LLC $1 million that a Vanguard S&P 500 index fund would outperform several groups of hedge funds over years.
The index fund is up 85.4 percent, Buffett said, while the hedge fund groups are up between 2.9 percent and 62.8 percent.
On Saturday, Buffett said he has “no doubt” he will win the bet. He plans to donate the money to Girls Inc of Omaha.
While Buffett said no pension funds or “mega-rich individuals” have taken his advice on index funds and that “human behavior won’t change,” some investors are following his lead.
Despite a roaring stock market in the United States, actively managed mutual funds bled $342 billion last year, their second straight year of outflows.
Passive index funds and exchange-traded funds, meanwhile, attracted nearly $506 billion of new money.
But Tim Armour, CEO of Capital Group Cos, which runs the American Funds and invests $1.4 trillion, said index funds can expose investors to losses when markets turn sour. The funds are one of Berkshire’s biggest investors.
“We don’t dispute the data that has led Mr. Buffett and others to form their views,” Armour said in a statement. “However, a fairly simple fact has gotten lost in the debate. Simply put, not all investment managers are average.”
Berkshire on Saturday also said fourth-quarter profit rose 15 percent from a year earlier, as gains from investments and derivatives offset lower profit from the BNSF railroad and other units.
Berkshire also owns dozens of stocks including Apple Inc , Coca-Cola Co, Wells Fargo & Co and the four biggest U.S. airlines, and more than one-fourth of Kraft Heinz Co.
This year’s letter and Berkshire’s annual report gave no clues about who will succeed Buffett as chief executive officer, a question shareholders and Wall Street have speculated about increasingly in recent years.
But Buffett lavishly praised Berkshire executive Ajit Jain, widely considered a leading CEO candidate, for smoothly running much of the conglomerate’s insurance businesses.
Jain joined Berkshire in 1986, and Buffett put him in charge of National Indemnity’s small, struggling reinsurance operation.
Since then, Jain has “created tens of billions of value for Berkshire shareholders. If there were ever to be another Ajit and you could swap me for him, don’t hesitate. Make the trade!”
Berkshire, which became one of the top 10 Apple investors in 2016, has gained about $1.6 billion on its Apple investment after shares of the iPhone maker surged.
Berkshire’s airline investments suggest that Buffett has overcome his two-decade aversion to the sector after an unhappy – though, he has said, profitable – investment in US Air Group.
Buffett, a vocal supporter of Hillary Clinton, did not mention U.S. President Donald Trump by name in his letter.
But he did, however, talk up the vibrancy of U.S. society and its inclusion of immigrants, one of the most polarizing issues under the Trump administration. And he said the future of American business and markets is bright.
“One word sums up our country’s achievements: miraculous,” Buffett said.
“From a standing start 240 years ago – a span of time less than triple my days on earth – Americans have combined human ingenuity, a market system, a tide of talented and ambitious immigrants, and the rule of law to deliver abundance beyond any dreams of our forefathers.”
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and David Gregorio)
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