This week the folks at US Cellular have launched enthusiastically back into the Unlimited Data plan market with all the bigger brands. For them, this means branding Unlimited Data with “Total Plans with No Hidden Fees.” For the user, this means data plans for as low as $40 per line just so long as the user has four phone lines … Continue reading
This year’s NBA All-Star Weekend wasn’t just about the iconic Slam Dunk Contest or the riveting game between the best players from the Eastern and Western conferences. Yes, these were certainly the main attractions for attendees and viewers at home,…
Forgoing the provocative and risque, a group of designers in Jerusalem on Thursday held Israel’s first major fashion show for Orthodox Jewish women, whose tradition requires they dress in conservative outfits.
Hundreds of Orthodox women and fashionistas were in the audience for “Modest Fashion Day” as Israeli models hit the catwalk wearing long sleeves and dresses down to their ankles.
“People are looking in our direction now to find that modest kind of look, which is very interesting to see,” said ultra-Orthodox stylist Miri Beillin.
“We are working for this amazing day, fashion modesty, which is a complete, amazing experience for us as religious women.”
Ultra-Orthodox Jews make up about 10 percent of Israel’s population.
(Reporting by Eli Berlzon; Editing by Toby Davis)
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Just weeks after getting back in Chili’s good graces, Pam Halpert is reuniting with some of her Dunder Mifflin crew.
Jenna Fischer shared a photo on Twitter posing alongside none other than Andy Buckley, better known as Dunder Mifflin CFO David Wallace. The actress bumped into him during a night out at the theater in Manhattan.
While New York City isn’t Pennsylvania, the Scranton love was there.
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Islamophobia comes in many forms ― from national policy that targets Muslim refugees, to the vandalism of sacred space, to subtle but equally vicious microaggressions that slowly seek to tear holes in American Muslims’ dignity, identity, and agency.
A video partnership between Muslim Girl and The Scene highlights a few of the more subtle ways Islamophobia manifests itself in Muslim women’s lives. The video, which was published to Facebook on Tuesday, points out 12 questions Muslim women are sometimes asked that either betray a serious lack of knowledge, or represent an intent to be mean-spirited and cruel.
There’s, “Do you shower in your hijab?” ― a question that may seem like a joke but can also be a way to reinforce the idea that wearing the headscarf is somehow “strange” or “other.”
“Why would anyone shower with clothes on?,” one of the participants in the video points out.
Other microaggressions include: “So is your marriage going to be arranged?,” “You don’t even look Muslim,” and “Muslim women are oppressed, right?”
According to Muslim Girl writer Dena Igusti, the problem with these questions and comments is that they paint all Muslim women with a broad brush, without taking into consideration all the diverse ways that Islam is practiced.
“Even with good intentions and despite how small these actions are, microaggressions enforce stereotypes that Muslim women are tired of hearing,” Igusti wrote. “In a time where these assumptions have been used as justification for violence toward us and the silencing of our narratives, now is the time to unlearn and relearn your perception of what Islam is.”
For Leah Vernon, a Muslim writer from Detroit, Mich. who was featured in the clip, this doesn’t mean that it’s wrong for non-Muslims to ask questions.
“By no means are we saying to not ask questions,” she writes. “Yes, we are magical creatures, and if I were you, I’d have lots of questions, too. But there is a fine line between taking part in micro-aggressions and genuinely asking a question because you really just don’t know.”
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The Merriam-Webster Twitter account has claimed its newest victim: Counselor to President Donald Trump Kellyanne Conway.
On Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Conway ― a woman whose career has greatly benefited from the work feminists have done ― said that she is “not about” identifying as a feminist. But Conway seems to be a bit confused about what the word actually means.
“For me, it’s difficult to call myself a feminist in the classic sense because it seems to be very anti-male,” she said. “And it certainly is very pro-abortion in this context. And I’m not anti-male or pro-abortion.”
However, Merriam-Webster was quick to rectify her misunderstanding. The dictionary tweeted the following on Thursday afternoon:
Feminism, the tweet reads, is: “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.”
Boom.
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Following the “devastating” episode of “Nashville” Thursday night, CMT’s new show about the iconic days of rock ‘n’ roll debuted to a solid audience.
“Sun Records” tells the story of the music scene in 1950s Memphis as Sun founder and producer Sam Phillips, along with his partner Marion Keisker, recorded historic sessions with Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. Chad Michael Murray plays Phillips, while newcomers like Drake Milligan, Kevin Fonteyne and Christian Lees take on the roles of Presley, Cash and Lewis, respectively.
Portraying Elvis on screen was something that excited Milligan, an 18-year-old from Fort Worth, Texas, who had previously played the icon in a short film titled “Nobody.”
“It’s intimidating,” Milligan told The Huffington Post during a Build Series interview on Thursday. “You got to realize there will be huge Elvis fans out there who’ll be really critical, and I’m sure I’m my worst critic, but to get to do my own interpretation of Elvis and do it on a platform like this is really cool. And to take my own thoughts about Elvis and what Elvis would’ve been thinking in high school and [about] this sudden fame that hit him ― he was an awkward teenager and then a couple years later he’s the biggest star in the world ― it’s an incredibly transformation there and an incredible arc to get to play.”
Another character who was equally as inspiring to bring to the screen was Keisker, the brains behind Phillips’ operation as his studio partner. Actress Margaret Anne Florence was “thrilled” to take on the role, especially because specific details about Keisker’s life are unknown.
“There was not much recorded about her history because, you know, she’s a woman in the ‘50s. We’re still struggling with that now, with women getting the same opportunities and everything as men. So finding information on her was a little more difficult,” Florence told HuffPost. “But also, as an actor, it’s nice because I get to take the pieces of her that I found ― and also from talking to some friends of hers in Memphis ― and I get to make the character my own.”
Although she didn’t have the “pressure” of playing a musical legend, Florence wanted to make sure Marion’s story was heard. Not only was she Phillips’ work partner, but she was his love interest as well, making the eight-episode storyline a “fascinating” one to delve into.
“She really worked hard and the studio just would not have run the same way, everybody said that. She ran things. She paid the bills. She got everything she needed to produce the records. Whatever they were doing, she did the business, Sam was there to really do the music and make the artists,” Florence explained, adding that playing opposite Murray has been great.
“She’s there as his partner and, for the most part, Sam treats her as his partner and respects her for what she’s trying to do for the business. So that was a great part of our relationship to play, too.”
“Sun Records” airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on CMT. Watch the full Build Series interview below.
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What’s more irresistible than a puppy looking for a new home? Stephen Colbert and Aubrey Plaza trying to sell you on their zany backstories.
The late-night host invited the actress on Thursday’s “Late Show” to try to get some available dogs from New York’s North Shore Animal League adopted. Their strategy was slightly different from the typical Sarah McLachlan–soundtracked plea for help, though: It involved straight-up lying.
“If you’re not willing to lie for an adorable puppy, you belong in a shelter,” Colbert said.
The first dog to be brought out, named Slugger, was a lab mix “certified in shiatsu massage,” as Colbert claimed. “He is trained to poop only on the lawns of your enemies,” he said. The total package.
Next, Aubrey showed off Ace, a hound mix that can talk “but chooses not to as a form of protest against wage inequality.” A social justice paw-rrior, if you will.
Check out the adorably funny video above.
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The head of the Montana Republican Party wrote an emergency plea this week warning that legislation allowing residents to cast mail-in ballots would benefit Democrats and make it more difficult for the GOP to maintain control of state politics.
At issue is legislation introduced by Montana state Sen. Steve Fitzpatrick (R) that would allow Montanans to cast mail-in ballots in a special election later this year to fill the U.S. House seat vacated by Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), whom President Donald Trump tapped to lead the Interior Department. Fitzpatrick introduced the bill to save the state $500,000 by not requiring election judges and other officials to be hired on short notice, he told The Associated Press.
But the legislation prompted Jeff Essmann, the chair of the Montana GOP, to send Republicans an “emergency report” email on Tuesday, warning that making it easier to vote would benefit Democrats.
“All mail ballots give the Democrats an inherent advantage in close elections due to their ability to organize large numbers of unpaid college students and members of public employee unions to gather ballots by going door to door,” Essmann wrote. “Vote-by-mail is designed to increase participation rates of lower propensity voters. Democrats in Montana perform better than Republican candidates among lower propensity voters and Republicans do better among higher propensity voters.”
As states across the country debate voting measures, Essmann’s email provides a remarkably candid glimpse of a Republican official opposing a measure to make it easier to vote on the grounds it would harm his party politically.
While the current legislation only addresses one special election, Essmann warned that it could have severe consequences for the state GOP.
“I know that my position will not be popular with many fiscally conservative Republican County Commissioners or the sponsor of House Bill 305. They may be well intended, but this bill could be death of our effort to make Montana a reliably Republican state,” he wrote. “It is my job to remind us all of the long term strategic advantage that passage of this bill would provide to our Democrat opponents for control of our legislature and our statewide elected positions.”
Essmann did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Twitter this week, he suggested that Democrats would “intercept” mail-in ballots.
Montana Secretary of State Corey Stapleton, a Republican, voiced similar concerns to lawmakers earlier this week and pointed to the three states that currently have mail-in balloting.
“If you look at the three states that have done it, you can see that populism and direct democracy at its best, all three states — Oregon, Washington and Colorado — they do all-mail-in ballots and they’re all marijuana-all-the-time states too,” he said, according to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.
The bill was voted out of committee on Wednesday and is now awaiting consideration by the full state Senate.
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With the “Game of Thrones” endgame near, we thought we had it figured out. Now Jaime Lannister is here to say, “Oh hell Snow.”
After Cersei Lannister blew up King’s Landing in the “Game of Thrones” Season 6 finale, and Jaime shot her that cold look, it seemed like things were already written. The ink was dry.
It makes sense.
The pair have always had a conflicted relationship. They’re siblings; They’re lovers. Now, she’s burned a whole bunch of people alive ― and the reason Jaime became the Kingslayer in the first place was to stop King Aerys from burning people alive.
It’s complicated. But it’s a popular theory.
There are dozens of posts in forums and stories online listing all the evidence for why Jaime will kill Cersei.
There’s also a prophecy about Cersei in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the inspiration for “Game of Thrones.” We got an abbreviated version of it in the Season 5 premiere, but a part from the book that got cut out of the show reads, “The valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.”
“Valonqar” is said to be High Valyrian for “little brother.”
It all seems to work out perfectly that Jaime would be the one to take down Cersei — a little too perfectly if you ask Jaime himself, actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.
The Huffington Post recently talked to Coster-Waldau about a variety of topics, including being a UNDP Goodwill Ambassador and his partnership with Google Street View to raise awareness on climate change, since winter is coming. We also asked about the idea that Jaime could kill Cersei.
“It’s a theory … but it has a beautiful, romantic, tragic thing [to it],” Coster-Waldau said before adding, “It’s probably too obvious.”
Cer-say what!?
The actor said that, ultimately, he had “no idea” how it would all turn out.
If that’s true, and Coster-Waldau doesn’t know, we can probably count on Cersei surviving through Season 7. Filming on the season is wrapping.
But is Jaime killing Cersei really “too obvious”?
In Martin’s books, Tyrion complains, “Prophecy is like a half-trained mule. It looks as though it might be useful, but the moment you trust in it, it kicks you in the head.”
If we’re not buying that the prophecy is about Jaime, there are some other possibilities. (After all, the prophecy says the valonqar will wrap his “hands” around Cersei’s throat. Last time we checked, Jaime had just one.)
Tyrion is another choice to cause Cersei’s demise, but he’s “obvious,” too.
He’s also Cersei’s younger sibling and clearly doesn’t see eye-to-eye with her, especially since she tried to have him executed for Joffrey’s murder.
That put a damper on the relationship.
Another strong possibility is Sansa. As we’ve said, the show’s version of Cersei’s prophecy is abbreviated, but it does mention that someone will come to destroy her.
“You’ll be queen for a time. Then comes another — younger, more beautiful — to cast you down and take all you hold dear.”
With Margaery now gone (R.I.P., Marg), Sansa is a leading candidate to fit the prediction of the “younger, more beautiful” person to take down Cersei.
Perhaps instead of “little brother,” the “valonqar” is actually a “little dove,” aka Cersei’s nickname for Sansa.
The culprit could also be Arya, whom actress Lena Headey said she wants to take down Cersei.
Or, as theorized by many, Jaime could kill Cersei. Like Coster-Waldau admitted, at this point, he doesn’t even know.
Will Jaime go from Kingslayer to kin-slayer?
Cersei did kill all those people, and Jaime, like all Lannisters, always pays his debts.
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