Hasta La Gadget!

Tesla began pushing an Autopilot update out to its cars yesterday, and with it, we’re inching closer to a fully autonomous future. If we were going to apply a theme to this update, that theme would unquestionably “speed.” That’s because this update raises the cap for assisted driving speeds on highways, giving you the potential to go even faster while … Continue reading

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A refugee from Iran returned to his Oregon home this week to find nearly every surface in his house spray-painted with horrifying death threats and anti-Muslim messages. 

“GET OUT OF USA YOU WILL DIE,” reads one message on a wall inside the Troutdale home of Hasel Afshar, according to KPTV’s Kelsey Watts. 

“TERRORIST” was written on a kitchen cabinet; “FUCK YOU TERRORIST” on a wall; “MUSLIM” and “KILL YOU” on the bedroom walls; “DIE” on a mirror; and “HATE” on a door. 

Chairs, doors, a couch, and a mattress were hacked with a hatchet, according to KPTV. 

And perhaps most frightening: bullets were left behind in the shape of a cross, weighing down a note. 

“If I come back here and see you again… I will shoot you and burn your house,” Afshar said the note read. 

A neighbor who toured Afshar’s house told KATU there was a threat that read, “If you don’t leave this house within a week, we’ll kill you.”

“I think this is a great country but I don’t know, it’s just a lot of racist people,” Afshar told KOIN6. 

Lieutenant Chad Gaidos, of the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, confirmed to The Huffington Post that officers arrived at Afshar’s house Wednesday night to investigate the threats and vandalism. 

“The Sheriff’s Office is investigating this case as an intimidation/biased crime,” he said in an email, adding that protocol required that the sheriff’s department notify the FBI of the crime. 

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called for the FBI to get involved in the investigation on Wednesday. An FBI spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter. 

The attack on Afshar’s home is sadly a familiar story in America this year, as Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim have been repeatedly targeted in hate crimes. 

In just the last week, a Muslim family in Virginia returned to their home to find “FUCK MUSLIMS” written on a wall, and their copy of the Quran destroyed; a man in Minnesota said his hatred of Muslims drove him to stab a Somali man; and in Colorado, a man was arrested for throwing rocks and a Bible through the glass doors of a mosque. 

Twice in one week this month, men allegedly threatened to shoot Muslim women in public. 

Earlier this month in Arizona, a man tore up copies of the Quran inside an Islamic center, and a couple allegedly urinated on a Quran inside a New Mexico library. 

And in one seven-week span this year, authorities determined that arson was to blame for three mosque fires. According to CAIR, mosques have been targeted with threats and acts of vandalism or destruction over 30 times in the first few months of 2017. 

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<span class="articleLocation”>Dr. Scott Gottlieb, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has outlined measures he would take to untangle his ties to the pharmaceutical industry if confirmed by the Senate.

In an ethics disclosure form filed with the Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday, Gottlieb said he would resign from multiple corporate boards including GlaxoSmithKline Plc and consulting positions.

Gottlieb’s financial ties to the healthcare industry are extensive. If confirmed he has agreed to recuse himself from matters in which he has a financial interest and divest his holdings in about 20 mostly small healthcare companies.

Gottlieb, 44, is widely expected to be confirmed, though his pharmaceutical ties are likely to be scrutinized by Democrats. For the past decade he has been a partner at New Enterprise Associates, a large venture capital fund with investments in the life sciences.

He would also resign from his position at the investment firm T.R. Winston & Co, and said he would not perform any consulting work while running the agency or participate in any matter involving previous clients for a year after last providing services to a client.

Gottlieb, a resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, is viewed favorably by the drug industry. He would be responsible for implementing key elements in the recently passed 21st Century Cures Act, which calls on the agency to streamline the drug approval process.

(Reporting by Toni Clarke in Washington; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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Morehouse College freshman Jauan Durbin may not have been able to pursue his degree if not for the mentorship he received from Black, Gifted and Whole, a nonprofit organization that dedicates itself to the empowerment of young, queer black men.

Its most recent extension of this initiative is the launch of the Ambassador Program, which awards partial scholarships to black queer men attending historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs. Last September, Durbin became the program’s first scholarship recipient. But he won’t be its last. 

BGW co-founders Guy Anthony and George Johnson told The Huffington Post that while Durbin was their inspiration for the program, they also recognized that young, black queer men attending HBCUs don’t receive much support on campus. Each school year, the program will award up to five scholarships.

“Being gay is not considered much of a ‘norm,’ especially on HBCU campuses,” Johnson said.

Only 21 of the 105 HBCUs in the U.S. have LGBTQ organizations, according to a report by the University of Pennsylvania.

“Dealing with living as an openly gay person, in addition to problems we deal with in the black church around homophobia and masculinity issues can create an environment that isn’t very conducive to learning, growth and nurturing for these men,” Johnson continued. 

Students with the Ambassador Program will receive support and mentorship from BGW throughout their college experience. Johnson and Anthony raise money for the scholarships through GoFundMe campaigns, private donors, galas and grant submissions. 

“Our goal is to ensure that these young men know that they don’t have to live their lives in pieces and can truly embody the essence of what it means to be black, gifted and whole,” Johnson said.

Durbin himself dealt with homophobia in school. As the first male cheerleader at School Without Walls in Washington, D.C., he was bullied by his peers. When he applied to Morehouse, he was initially denied because of a low GPA. But with the help of Johnson and Anthony, he successfully appealed and was accepted into the college. 

In a statement sent to HuffPost, Durbin said that since attending Morehouse, he has worked to make his HBCU campus more inclusive of the LGBTQ community. He was even elected a freshman class senator in his first semester. In this position, he began an effort to make the school’s constitution more inclusive by advocating for the implementation of non-binary pronouns. 

“I am blossoming into the black queer man that I was destined to be at the institution that I was destined to help change,” Durbin said.

To learn more about all Black, Gifted and Whole has to offer, go to their website or check out Johnson’s blog piece on The Huffington Post. 

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