While Netflix has dominated much of the streaming content market, it’s been blocked by regulators in a major region: China. The company found a stopgap method to get its material into the country by way of a new licensing deal with the Beijing-based…
Airlines who force passengers to check their bags at the gate should pay out an automatic $500 to those affected. Since that’s not the case, we have another option.
Samsung is working on a smartphone display that will have four curved edges, according to sources, and as such its next flagship handset may have a nearly full-glass front. As expected, the development process is not without its troubles; the sources say the Korean company is dealing with issues in the lamination process, which involves applying a protective film to … Continue reading
Sometimes, a facial expression really does say it all.
On Saturday, Nolanah Garcia, a high school senior at Southside High School in San Antonio, Texas, brought Devin Collier, her boyfriend of three years, to tears when he saw her in her prom dress for the first time. On Sunday, she shared several sweet photos of the big reveal on Twitter, which have since been retweeted more than 31,000 times:
“Here was Devin’s reaction & me telling him to stop crying cause I was gonna cry and mess up my makeup,” she wrote on Twitter.
Nolanah looked stunning in a royal blue crop top and skirt set by Sherri Hill from Gautier Formal Dresses. Devin ― who graduated from the same high school two years ago ― was visibly overcome with emotion.
“I really didn’t expect Devin’s reaction,” she told HuffPost. “But he got teary-eyed and I saw tears coming out, which made me react by tearing up too.”
“I just felt so loved actually, I wanted to cry seeing him cry over me,” she told Teen Vogue.
Devin and Nolanah weren’t the only ones getting misty-eyed. Twitter was also hit right in the feels by the heartwarming moment:
“He’s a great boyfriend,” Nolanah told HuffPost. “He’s always taking care of me and making sure I’m happy. He’s honestly the best I could ask for.”
H/T Teen Vogue
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WASHINGTON ― In the past three months, President Donald Trump has signed a number of executive orders that didn’t actually effect substantive changes, but which established task forces to study policy and, eventually, recommend possible courses of action.
On Tuesday, he signed another one, this time about farms.
Tuesday’s order, which Trump signed surrounded by farmers and ranchers, focuses on agriculture and rural development, which the Trump administration claims had been neglected by the Obama administration.
“We continue a very relentless effort to make life better for Americans, and that includes the farmers and the people gathered around this table and including our ranchers and rural community folks,” Trump said at the White House.
The president also complained about Canadian restrictions on dairy imports from the U.S. “This has been going on for a while. We are not going to put up with it,” he said, adding that the U.S. had slapped a tariff on Canadian lumber.
The order Trump signed Tuesday is modest. It terminates a rural council that President Barack Obama created with an executive order in 2011, and replaces that council with a task force that will similarly be chaired by the secretary of agriculture and joined by officials from other agencies in the executive branch.
“The executive order is ― well, it’s just pretty limp when you get right down to it,” David Swenson, an economist with Iowa State University, said in an interview.
As with several other orders Trump has signed, Tuesday’s document doesn’t directly change administration policy. Rather, it asks agencies to come up with policy recommendations at a later time. The order gives the new task force 180 days to “identify legislative, regulatory, and policy changes to promote in rural America agriculture, economic development, job growth, infrastructure improvements, technological innovation, energy security, and quality of life.”
Obama’s rural council had a similar job. Obama’s order told the council, among other things, “to coordinate development of policy recommendations to promote economic prosperity and quality of life in rural America.”
A summary of Trump’s order said Obama’s rural council was “noble in purpose,” but too informal in practice. It also said, however, that the task force would consider whether the council structure was useful after all and should be brought back.
“They’re gonna study it just like the last administration studied it,” Swenson said.
The president’s order comes amid concerns from some farmers and agriculture experts that the Trump administration hasn’t been focused on farm policy and that Trump’s trade agenda could be bad for farmers, who sell a lot of crops for export. A Trump budget proposal earlier this year offered steep cuts for the Agriculture Department, which was the last executive branch agency to get a Cabinet secretary nomination, with Sonny Perdue getting sworn in earlier on Tuesday.
Johnathan Hladik, policy director at the Center for Rural Affairs, a rural advocacy group, said certain aspects of the executive order — especially its mention of technological innovation in rural America — are promising.
On the whole, however, Hladik feels the order will do little to alleviate his concerns with the massive cuts proposed for the USDA ― particularly when it comes to the zeroing-out of rural development initiatives like the agency’s microentrepreneur assistance program and value added producer grants in Trump’s budget proposal.
“To me, it sounds like they’ve ignored rural America for their first 95 days and started to get some flak, so on days 95 and 96 they’re doing these token gestures to show they’re ignoring [rural America] no longer,” Hladik told HuffPost.
The Farm Bureau, America’s largest agribusiness advocacy group, generally supports Trump and his efforts to undo regulations. But the liberal-leaning National Farmers Union was unenthusiastic Tuesday.
Rob Larew, senior vice president of government relations and communications at the NFU, dismissed the order as a “redressing” of previous administrations’ efforts to address rural concerns.
Larew’s group remains focused on how Perdue might push back against proposed cuts to his agency’s budget, and on farming-related policy decisions that have been made in the past weeks and months.
“Everything from immigration efforts to health care have huge implications from the rural and agriculture perspective,” Larew told HuffPost. “So what will [Perdue] do? There are lots of challenges on the horizon, some of which were created by this administration, so he has a lot of things to take care of very quickly.”
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Hector Andres Zuniga, a 20-year-old man who has autism and is non-verbal, had been going to his local Blockbuster store in Sharyland, Texas since he was 13.
He made the trip to the store at least twice a week to pick up snacks and rent his favorite movies, which typically involve “Barney,” “Rugrats,” Elmo or “Blue’s Clues.”
Most of the staff at Blockbuster watched him grow up. His father, also named Hector, told HuffPost that whenever they passed the store in the car, his son would point to it and utter one the few words he says: “Barney.”
A few months ago, Hector Andres’ mother, Rosa, got some heartbreaking news.
A Blockbuster employee pulled her aside while she and Hector Andres were visiting and told her that the store would be closing. Blockbuster declared bankruptcy in 2010, and only a handful of stores remain open across the U.S.
Rosa immediately called her husband.
“[Hector Andres] is a happy-go-lucky kid,” Hector Sr. said. “He’s all heart, he’s very tender, but like anyone else, he has bad days. And we knew one of those bad days were around the corner when we found out that the Blockbuster was about to close.”
Since the store was such a huge part of Hector Andres’ routine, his parents would have to break the news to him very gently.
While on the phone with her husband, Rosa got an idea. Since the store would be selling all of its inventory before officially closing, why not buy some of those items and recreate Blockbuster at home for Hector Andres?
Hector Sr. loved the idea.
“The employees told us when they’d start selling their stock, and when they did, I was one of the first customers in the store,” he said
The Zunigas began to secretly buy and squirrel away all kinds of things from Blockbuster, including DVDs, signs and even a rack that employees helped Rosa set up and transport to her car. Hector Sr. said Blockbuster employees would also set aside items they knew Hector Andres would like for the Zunigas to buy when they came into the store.
“Those employees really came out to bat for my son,” Hector Sr. said. “They really paid attention and did a hell of a job.”
Then on April 23, closing day finally arrived.
The entire Zuniga family, including Hector Andres’ 19-year-old brother, Javier, went to the store. The family waited until later in the day, when most of the store’s inventory was cleared out, and there were empty walls and racks, before bringing Hector Andres there.
The Zunigas wanted him to fully understand that the store was closing. Hector Sr. said he also wanted his son to have closure.
“He made a beeline to the area where he usually rents movies,” Hector Sr. said. “And there was nothing there. The shelves that usually had his DVDs were already gone.”
Hector Andres got the message, loud and clear.
“He understood, I could see it in his eyes,” Hector Sr. said. “And he almost started having a meltdown.”
But Hector Sr. knew what to do. He grabbed his son’s hands, looked into his eyes and said, “This place is closing, but it’s OK. We have a surprise for you at home.”
Once home, the Zunigas gave Hector Andres a puzzle to play with while he processed what had just happened. While he was busy, Hector Sr. and Javier went into a spare room and set up their at-home Blockbuster store.
About an hour later, they walked Hector Andres to the room with his eyes covered and surprised him.
“It’s hard for my son to express emotions,” Hector Sr. said. “But when he saw the room, his eyes were as big as saucers.”
Hector Andres looked around the room in disbelief, his family explaining the entire time that all of it was for him. Hector Sr. said his son even went up to a few DVDs and touched them “almost like he was checking to see if they were real.”
After Hector Andres had fully taken in the surprise, he thanked his dad in his own way.
“His way of saying ‘I love you,’ is by going up to you and grabbing your earlobe,” Hector Sr. told HuffPost. “So he came up to me and grabbed my ear … it was one of those moments that us parents live for.”
Hector Andres then grabbed three or four DVDs and ran to his room to watch them.
“It was a hit,” Hector Sr. said.
Javier, who dotes on his big brother, was especially touched by the moment. He decided to post a few pictures of the Zunigas’ sweet accomplishment to Twitter. The photos quickly went viral, receiving over 117,000 likes and 29,000 retweets.
Hector Sr. said his family is overwhelmed by the response, but he has a hunch as to why the post became as popular as it did:
“Every once in a while everything just seems to work,” Hector Sr. said. “And this time, it just did.”
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Oregon saw big hikes in voter turnout among youth and voter registration among communities of color in its first election since adopting automatic voter registration, a new report shows.
In early 2016, Oregon was the first state to implement a system in which eligible residents are automatically registered to vote when they have any significant interaction with the motor vehicles department. People have to opt out if they don’t want to register.
Following the change, Oregon saw some major gains in underrepresented communities, according to the Alliance for Youth Action’s report. Turnout among voters ages 18 to 29 increased by 20 percentage points, from 37 percent in 2012 to 57 percent in 2016. Registration among voters of color increased by 26 points, from 53 percent in 2012 to 79 percent in 2016.
The Alliance for Youth Action is an advocacy group that supports automatic voter registration generally and Oregon’s law specifically.
The specific increases in turnout among youth and registration among people of color in Oregon were the biggest among the 40 states that make their data publicly available, the report says. The increases in youth registration outpaced Oregon’s population growth in that demographic.
Sarah Audelo, executive director of the Alliance for Youth Action, noted that the campaign to pass Oregon’s law in 2015 was led by young organizers and said even her group was surprised by the size of the increases in turnout and registration.
“Access to the ballot matters. As a country we should be taking a hard look at ourselves to see what are we doing to make sure that our people are able to vote, that they’re able to participate in our democracy,” Audelo told HuffPost. “We absolutely are fighting back hard against efforts to restrict access to the ballot, but oh my gosh, look what happens when we make it easier for people to participate.”
A survey by the Black Youth Project found that in late 2012, the most-common reason young Americans gave for not voting was that they were not registered. Nationally, just 45 percent of eligible voters under 29 voted in 2012, compared to 66 percent of eligible voters 30 and older, according to the Alliance for Youth Action report.
“Oregon shows us that AVR [automatic voter registration] can be the great equalizer ― and help build a robust electorate that mirrors this country’s make-up,” said Allegra Chapman, director of voting and elections at Common Cause. “The state already had one of the highest turnout rates in the country, and now it’s building an ever stronger voter base. This is definitely the direction in which the country needs to go: amplifying all eligible voices to create a democracy that accounts for all.”
Lawmakers in California, Vermont, West Virginia and the District of Columbia have also all enacted automatic voter registration. Colorado and Connecticut did it administratively. And Alaska voters approved a slightly different version through a ballot measure this past November.
Despite signs of success in Oregon soon after the election, Republican governors in a number of states have blocked attempts to pass automatic voter registration. They often cite concerns about voter fraud, although several studies and investigations have shown it is not a widespread problem in the United States. Over the last two years, automatic voter registration bills have been introduced in nearly 30 states.
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If actions speak louder than words, the self-driving car company Waymo might as well be shouting.
Waymo, the startup spun off from Google last year, said Monday it will add 500 self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans to its fleet, bringing the total number of autonomous vehicles it has on the road to about 600.
The bulk of those additional minivans will operate in the Phoenix area, where Waymo has been quietly operating a test program for select families, with plans to open up its free program to hundreds more for a public trial.
“Over the course of this trial, we’ll be accepting hundreds of people with diverse backgrounds and transportation needs who want to ride in and give feedback about Waymo’s self-driving cars,” CEO John Krafcik explained in a blog post.
“Rather than offering people one or two rides, the goal of this program is to give participants access to our fleet every day, at any time, to go anywhere within an area that’s about twice the size of San Francisco.”
The addition of 500 vehicles will dramatically increase Waymo’s ability to capture critical mapping data ― and to use that data to improve its software (read more about that here) ― launching the company even further ahead of competitors like Uber and Lyft (though probably not Tesla, which has a couple billion miles under its belt, compared with Waymo’s 3 million).
Waymo’s self-driving fleet isn’t just larger than Uber’s (as of March 8, Uber had 43 cars). It’s also substantially better at driving.
According to documents filed with the state of California, Waymo’s human drivers had to take control from the automated system (called “disengagement”) once for every 5,000 miles its cars drove in 2016.
Backup human drivers in Uber’s self-driving cars had to take over about once every mile as of March 8, according to documents obtained by Recode (Uber doesn’t make its data publicly available).
Some of the difference can be attributed to location. Uber is testing many of its cars in Pittsburgh, which has much more challenging climate and geography than Phoenix. Waymo is also testing vehicles in Texas, California, and Washington state.
Waymo and Uber have been fighting a fierce battle over intellectual property. Waymo has accused Uber of stealing some of its critical technology in a lawsuit. The case is scheduled for a hearing May 3, when a judge could halt Uber’s self-driving program until the case is resolved.
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Like many guys using the Tinder dating app, Sudan loves the outdoors and travels widely. The catch: he’s the world’s last male white northern rhino and desperately needs to mate.
“I don’t mean to be too forward, but the fate of my species literally depends on me,” reads his profile. “I perform well under pressure. I like to eat grass and chill in the mud. No problems. 6 ft tall and 5,000 pounds if it matters.”
Conservationists are hoping that Sudan’s Tinder profile will help them raise enough money for $9-million fertility treatment as all attempts at getting him to mate naturally have failed.
Scientists would use Sudan’s sperm to fertilize an egg from one of the two last northern white rhino females: 17-year-old Satu or 27-year-old Najin. The embryo will be implanted in a surrogate southern white rhino, a far more common species.
”We tried everything to get them to mate naturally,” said Elodie Sampere, the marketing manager at Kenya’s Ol Pejeta conservancy, where all three white rhinos are accompanied by 24-hour armed guards.
“When he first tried to mount the girl, the rangers guided him … but it is difficult with a rhino,” she said.
“We removed them from a zoo environment, which was not conducive to natural instincts, and put them in a semi-wild environment. There were a couple of matings, but it never resulted in a pregnancy.”
Poachers sell northern white rhinos horns for $50,000 per kilo, making them more valuable than gold or cocaine, and his keepers fear that Sudan, who at 43 is ancient for a rhino, may die or be killed before they can raise enough money.
“There’s always that fear. He’s old, he might die soon,” said rhino expert Richard Vigne, the CEO of Ol Pejeta. “As long as the demand for rhino horn in the Far East persists, there will always be an ever-present threat.”
A swipe right on Sudan’s Tinder profile – available in 190 countries and 40 languages – directs users to the Ol Pejeta donation page: www.olpejetaconservancy.org/
Just hours after he went online, the number of hits was so high that the Ol Pejeta website crashed.
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Oklahoma should continue its moratorium on executions until it can reform its death penalty system to ensure that no innocent person is put to death, according to the recommendation of the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission.
The commission outlined its recommendation Tuesday as it released a nearly 300-page report.
(View the full report below.)
“Our primary recommendation, based on our in-depth study and work, is that the state of Oklahoma should extend the current moratorium on executions until significant reforms are accomplished,” former Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat who co-chaired the group, said at a press conference Tuesday.
Henry said that, while some members favor outright abolition of the death penalty and others staunchly support it, the commission’s recommendation to continue the moratorium was unanimous ― and “wasn’t difficult to reach.”
“We were all disturbed by the volume and seriousness of the flaws in Oklahoma’s capital punishment system,” Henry said.
Executions in Oklahoma have been suspended for 17 months, since a last-minute discovery of an injection drug mixup halted the execution of Richard Glossip. The state had already executed two other prisoners since 2014 with injections that had gone wrong. A damning, multi-county grand jury investigation found that the Oklahoma Department of Corrections used the wrong drug in one and was prepared to use that same incorrect drug on Glossip.
We were all disturbed by the volume and seriousness of the flaws in Oklahoma’s capital punishment system.
Former Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry, co-chair of the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission
The 11-member bipartisan commission behind Tuesday’s report included representatives of academia, the legal field and all three branches of government, as well as families of murder victims and families of those who have been wrongfully convicted.
Over 10 full-day meetings plus other interviews, they concluded that Oklahoma’s capital punishment system had “systemic problems” in key areas of forensics, innocence protections, the execution process and the roles of juries, prosecutors, defense and the judiciary.
The commission issued more than 40 recommendations on how Oklahoma could approach reforms, including broadening the clemency process, reconfiguring the appeals process and raising the threshold for which defendants are eligible for the death penalty. The commission also said that bolstering resources for public defenders would improve Oklahoma’s system by ensuring fairer trials and fewer appeals down the road.
The prospect of executing an innocent person appeared to weigh heavily on the commission, with Henry repeatedly addressing the need to prevent it.
“You may get innocent people on death row. And we know we have,” Henry said, noting that, since 1973, Oklahoma alone has exonerated 10 people who were on death row.
“I believe it’s very likely that, at some point, Oklahoma has executed an innocent person,” he said, quickly adding that he couldn’t be certain.
Lethal injection drugs were another aspect of Oklahoma’s system that the commission said needed better options. Henry said they believed the best protocol “is the one-drug barbiturate rather than the three-drug cocktail we have here.”
States like Texas use the one-drug method of injecting pentobarbital, but it has become increasingly hard to find. Most active death penalty states use the three-drug method, and it’s the first drug, a sedative, that has caused significant issues. The preferred drug is largely unavailable after drugmakers pulled out of the market. It its place, states have used midazolam, which critics say doesn’t reliably render an inmate unconscious before the paralyzing and ultimately lethal drugs are injected.
Now, midazolam is becoming hard to find as well; its scarcity is what triggered Arkansas’ current effort to execute eight prisoners in 11 days before its supply of the drug expires. Arkansas has executed three of the eight men in the last week and has a lethal injection scheduled for Thursday. Four of the men have been issued stays.
“We didn’t say ‘abolish the death penalty’ in the report,” Henry notes. “Just that if you want to have it, you must do it correctly.”
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