GoPro needs a nice, clear-cut win. The company that makes such good action cameras it’s become nearly synonymous with the product has had a rough time. Last year, it had to lay people off and delay the release of its drone after declining sales and improved competition put a severe dent in its coffers. Then, that new…
If you trust a doctor with information about your urinary tract or penis, you probably don’t want them talking about you online. You probably hope that their online presence is devoid of most unprofessional behaviors, in fact.
United’s market capitalization, essentially the current value of the company, has fallen by more than $750 million from $22.5 billion after a video showing a bloodied United passenger who was dragged off a flight made headlines on Monday.
Growing up, I spent some time with at my grandfather’s house during the summer. There were no toys, only the stuff he liked to do. That meant cards, dominos, and copious amounts of beer. That meant while he was sitting under the tree out back getting snockered, I was setting up lines of dominoes to topple. My uncle was a bit of an a-hole, and would often come by and shake the table just as I was finishing up my last bit of domino line.
Domino fanatic Lily Hevesh recently teamed up with some pals to set an unofficial world record for toppling the longest domino line ever. There have been displays with many more dominoes, but none recorded where they were all in one continuous line. The line had 15,524 dominoes and took the guys two days to set up, and about five minutes to knock over:
I can only imagine if my uncle were around the task would have been more tedious. Fortunately, for Lily and company, they didn’t have to deal with that.
[via Laughing Squid]
It isn’t unusual for new administrations to overturn the decisions, mandates, and thrusts of the previous, especially when they come from opposite side. So far, the FCC, under the new chair Ajit Pai has undertaken the process of undoing Net Neutrality rules. Now it is taking aim at another controversial old FCC stance. Although still to be put to a … Continue reading
New surveys find initial support for last week’s airstrikes in Syria, but with little appetite for more. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie sets a dubious national record. And advocates are worried about the 2020 Census. This is HuffPollster for Tuesday, April 11, 2017.
MOST POLLS SHOW NARROW MAJORITY SUPPORTING TRUMP’S ACTIONS – Four new surveys released since President Trump ordered air strikes last week find support hovering between 50 and 57 percent. HuffPollster: “[About half] of Americans support President Donald Trump’s missile strikes against Syria in retaliation for the Syrian government’s reported use of chemicals weapons on its citizens, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov survey. The poll also found some Americans concerned about Trump’s preparation for the attack and his failure to seek congressional authorization. Fifty-one percent of Americans say they support Trump’s decision to order strikes, with 32 percent opposed, and 17 percent uncertain….Just one-third of the public thinks the strikes will be even somewhat likely to deter the use of chemical weapons, with 46 percent believing they’re somewhat unlikely or very unlikely to have any such effect…. [R]espondents were asked near the beginning of the survey whether they knew if the U.S. had conducted strikes in Syria in the past six months. While 57 percent said that it had, 19 percent said there hadn’t been any such strikes, and 24 percent that they weren’t sure….Overall, the public approves of Trump’s handling of Syria by a modest 4-point margin, 41 percent to 37 percent ― significantly better than his overall approval rating. But other questions reveal wariness about the president’s decision-making process. Americans say, 42 percent to 32 percent, that Trump did not plan carefully enough before ordering the strikes. They also say, 44 percent to 22 percent, that his actions were not consistent with his previous statements about Syria.” [HuffPost]
CBS News: “Fifty-seven percent of Americans approve of the airstrike against Syrian military targets ― calling immoral the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons that led to the strike ― but most are leery of any military involvement beyond airstrikes, a CBS News poll shows.” [CBS]
Gallup: “Americans’ support for the military strikes against Syria last week is historically low compared with reactions to previous U.S. military actions. Fifty percent of Americans approve of the missile airstrikes, while 41% disapprove. Ten percent have no opinion.” [Gallup]
Washington Post/ABC News: “Americans narrowly support missile strikes ordered by President Trump last week in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack in Syria, even as most oppose additional military efforts to remove President Bashar al-Assad from power, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. By 51 to 40 percent, more support than oppose the missile strikes launched early Friday on the Shayrat air base in Syria, with opinions dividing sharply along partisan lines.” [WashPost]
Will the strikes help Trump’s approval rating? – Harry Enten: “Most foreign policy entanglements do not result in a ‘rally around the flag’ event — when a president’s popularity jumps because Americans rally behind their commander-in-chief. That’s according to a 2001 study by William Baker of the Arkansas School for Mathematics and Sciences and John Oneal of the University of Alabama. Their study found that only 39 percent of U.S. military interventions from 1933 to 1993 resulted in a rise in the president’s approval rating. Still, 39 percent is a sizable minority of the time. So, will President Trump’s order to launch missiles at a Syrian airfield be one of them?…Americans tend to react with greater enthusiasm when there is bipartisan support for an intervention….Americans tend to give the president a boost when he’s acting against a major power…. Americans seem to respond more positively when the U.N. Security Council gives its approval to a foreign endeavor….Americans are more likely to warm toward the president when there are revisionist goals at stake….Americans are more likely to rally behind a president at the beginning of his presidency.” HuffPost Pollster’s aggregate currently puts Trump’s approval rating at an average net -12, little changed from -13 at the beginning of the month. [538, Trump approval chart]
CHRIS CHRISTIE IS THE LEAST POPULAR GOVERNOR IN THE U.S. – Morning Consult: “New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had a tough 2016, and this year isn’t starting off any better for him: He’s now the most unpopular governor in the country, according to the new Morning Consult Governor Approval rankings. More than 85,000 registered voters across America evaluated the job performance of their governors from from January 2017 through March 2017 to determine the latest rankings….Just 25 percent of New Jerseyans approve of their Republican governor, who continues to be dogged by the “Bridgegate” scandal. Seventy-one percent disapprove of Christie, who endorsed Donald Trump for president after dropping out of the GOP’s presidential primary in early 2016. The two most popular governors are Republicans in traditionally blue states: Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and Larry Hogan of Maryland. Both governors have reputations as shrewd, bipartisan dealmakers who value results over party purity, and their constituents seem to appreciate that style. Three-fourths (75 percent) of Bay Staters approve of Baker, while 17 percent disapprove. In Maryland, 73 percent approve of Hogan, and 16 percent disapprove.” [Morning Consult]
Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders holds his place as the most popular Senator – Morning Consult: “Three-quarters (75 percent) of Vermonters approve of the liberal firebrand who finished as runner-up to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, compared with 21 percent who disapprove. However, Sanders’ elevation to national prominence does appear to have compromised his standing among some of his constituents. His approval was down 12 points (from 87 percent) compared with his numbers in September, while his disapproval was up 9 points (from 12 percent).” [Morning Consult]
THE 2020 CENSUS COULD BE HURT BY TRUMP’S RHETORIC – Danny Vinik: “The first day of this month marked three years until Census Day: April 1, 2020. Though it may sound like one of the driest bureaucratic responsibilities of the federal government, the census has crucial implications for national politics—and requires years of planning, hundreds of thousands of new employees and even a marketing campaign to ensure the broadest possible snapshot of the American population. Already, Congress’ inability to agree on a full-year funding measure for fiscal 2017 has forced the Census Bureau to cancel multiple field tests and delay opening three field offices….And more broadly, the Trump administration’s hard-line rhetoric and executive orders cracking down on undocumented immigrants may already be creating a major new risk for the census, making members of minority and immigrant communities less likely to respond. ‘If you imagine that the federal government is asking for personal information and you feel that the federal government is hostile and that if you were to answer this, perhaps they would use this against you,’ said Terry Ao Minnis, director of the census and voting programs at Asian Americans Advancing Justice. ‘That, of course, will make people less inclined to participate.’” [Politico]
COOK POLITICAL CHANGES RACE RATINGS FOR TWO SPECIAL ELECTIONS – Dave Wasserman on the KS-04 and GA-06 races: “In the final hours of the special election to replace new CIA Director Mike Pompeo in Wichita, Kansas, Republicans are expressing alarm that Democrat James Thompson is within striking distance of carrying a seat President Trump won by 27 points last November. Although GOP state Treasurer Ron Estes remains the favorite heading into Election Day, we are shifting our rating from Likely Republican to Lean Republican….There is a real chance Democrat Jon Ossoff, who is dramatically outspending the rest of the field while the main GOP contenders turn on each other, could hit 50 percent on April 18 and avoid a runoff. As such, we are moving GA-06 to Toss Up.” [Cook, New PVI ratings]
Visualizing Democrats’ backlash against Trump: Alissa Scheller and Daniel Marans: “President Donald Trump’s election has sparked an enormous groundswell of activism from rank-and-file voters angry about his policies. Political analysts have wondered whether Democrats can turn this wave of progressive enthusiasm into concrete electoral gains in the 2018 midterms. One way to test that: special elections to fill empty state legislature and congressional seats….The Huffington Post has created a visualization comparing Democrats’ margins in each special election held so far this year to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s margin against Trump in the same district last fall. We’ll be updating this resource as more races take place.” [HuffPost]
FEW SEE MUCH PROGRESS IN ‘DRAINING THE SWAMP’ – HuffPollster, on a HuffPost/YouGov survey: “Fifty-two percent say that Trump has done ‘not very well’ or ‘not at all well’ at upholding his promise to “drain the swamp of government corruption,” with only 30 percent saying he’s done even somewhat well. Just 6 percent think he’s done ‘very well’ at fulfilling that pledge….Even after several months as the nation’s top-ranking elected official, Trump still isn’t seen as a political insider. Sixty-nine percent of Americans still consider him to be more of an outsider, with just 12 percent saying he’s part of the establishment.” [HuffPost]
HUFFPOLLSTER VIA EMAIL! – You can receive this update every Tuesday and Friday morning via email! Just click here, enter your email address, and click “sign up.” That’s all there is to it (and you can unsubscribe anytime).
TUESDAY’S ‘OUTLIERS’ – Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:
-Gallup tests support for 15 of President Trump’s proposals and actions. [Gallup]
-Kathy Frankovic notes increased GOP support for some provisions of Obamacare. [YouGov]
-Nelson Schwartz looks at the way partisanship helps to drive views of the economy. [NYT]
-Perry Bacon Jr. tallies support in the Senate for Trump’s Syria air strikes. [538]
-Aaron Blake argues that gerrymandering gets too much blame for polarization. [WashPost]
-Michael Lipka and David McClendon predict that the religiously unaffiliated share of the world’s population will decline.[Pew]
-John Gramlich and Kristen Bialik write that federal law enforcement agencies are making more arrests for immigration-related offenses than they were 10 years ago. [Pew]
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Better leave two seats empty at the White House Passover Seder this year― one for Elijah, and one for the president.
President Donald Trump didn’t attend his staffers’ official Passover dinner on Monday, bucking the tradition that his predecessor Barack Obama started.
Obama both hosted and attended the Passover dinner every year of his presidency, a first for a sitting president. The tradition began during the 2008 presidential campaign, when he and several Jewish staffers held an impromptu Seder in Pennsylvania hotel.
Trump officially hosted Monday night’s Seder, but neither he nor his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner ― who are Jewish― joined. According to his schedule, the president is having dinner with military leaders on Tuesday, so it seems unlikely he’ll attend a Seder then, either.
His absence was surprising to people who thought he would attend because of his fraught history with Jewish people. Notably, his campaign received widespread endorsement from Nazi groups and anti-Semitic figures like David Duke and Richard Spencer. Trump eventually denounced their support, but that didn’t stop him from later using an anti-Semitic image in an tweet criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Trump has also been criticized by Jewish groups who liken his Syrian refugee ban to Holocaust-era policies. Trump’s America First slogan has anti-Semitic roots, too: It was popularized by citizens who opposed U.S. involvement in World War II. And the president even commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Day with a statement that didn’t actually mention the Jewish people.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer shared a photo from the dinner, but didn’t explain the president’s absence.
Trump instead marked the night by tweeting “Chag Sameach”― the Hebrew way of saying “happy holidays”― to those celebrating.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Comedian and “Daily Show” senior correspondent Hasan Minhaj will headline the 2017 White House Correspondents Association dinner, an annual Washington gala being held this year amid President Donald Trump’s persistent attacks on the press.
Trump has said he will not attend the April 29 event, which would make him the first sitting president in over three decades to skip the dinner. No members of Trump’s White House staff are expected to attend either, the first time that’s occurred since the annual dinner began nearly a century ago.
Still, the show must go on. Speaking Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” WHCA president Jeff Mason announced Minhaj as the headliner, saying that he “brings comedy chops, but he also brings heart ― and I think that we’re going to see that at this dinner.”
“He’s going to make some jokes, no doubt, about the press and probably about the president,” said Mason, who is also a Reuters correspondent. “But he’s also going to bring the message that we hope to get across that night. And that is: The First Amendment is critical and the work of the press corps and the journalists around the world is very important.”
Mason has stressed that this year’s dinner will focus especially on the journalists who cover the White House each day, some of whom might not have gotten into previous star-studded dinners where news organizations stacked tables with celebrities.
This year’s dinner is striking a more earnest tone, which reflects the renewed sense of mission among journalists in the Trump era. CNN, for example, is inviting journalism students rather than Hollywood stars, and some of the weekend’s traditional glitzy parties, thrown by the likes of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, have been canceled. Legendary Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein will take the stage to hand out journalism awards.
Though Mason said Minhaj’s role will not be to “roast the president in absentia,” the so-called “Muslim correspondent” has not been shy about taking on Trump, especially when it comes to his anti-Muslim rhetoric.
Following Trump’s victory in November, Minhaj said he’d viewed the candidate’s December 2015 call to temporarily block Muslims from entering the United States as “instantly disqualifying,” and argued that “open racism should just be a deal-breaker.”
In January, Minhaj ripped Trump’s travel ban on seven majority-Muslim countries, along with the Republicans and commentators who said during the campaign that a ban on Muslims wouldn’t actually happen if Trump were elected.
“What the fuck?” he said. “So we ARE getting banned?”
In a statement Tuesday, Minhaj said “it is a tremendous honor to be a part of such a historic event even though the president has chosen not to attend this year. SAD!”
“Now more than ever,” he continued, “it is vital that we honor the First Amendment and the freedom of the press.”
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Man, you’re never going to believe what may soon be used to make clothes.
It’s a fabric made from cow poop.
On April 6, the H&M Foundation tapped five fashion innovators for its Global Change Award, a roughly $1.06 million prize celebrating sustainability through “game-changing ideas that can help reinvent the entire industry.”
One of those winners, Dutch artist and entrepreneur Jalila Essaidi, makes a textile jokingly referred to as “manure couture.” And yes, it’s exactly what you think it is.
Essaidi’s revolutionary fabric, Mestic, is made from the cellulose found in the dry components of cow manure. The wet materials in cow manure also contain acids necessary “to transform the cellulose into a new material,” she explained in a 2016 interview, meaning there’s even less waste of waste.
Essaidi explains on her website that the fabric serves as a way to reduce phosphate and nitrogen, two chemicals found in manure that harm the environment and, as of 2016, were in surplus in The Netherlands.
Refinery29 reports that the material itself does not smell like poop, and garments shown in a 2016 fashion show using Mestic really do look luxurious and wearable.
Essaidi is also the creator of Bulletproof Skin, “a project that achieved bioengineered bulletproof human skin reinforced with synthetic spider silk.”
In other words, she’s a total badass.
The prize money was awarded to “speed up the shift to a circular waste-free fashion industry,” according to a press release, and winners will participate in a year-long innovation accelerator to help them develop their ideas or products and connect them within the fashion industry.
While it remains to be seen how close to market Mestic will be after the year-long accelerator program, Essaidi’s intentions are clear. “I just want people to give a shit about the planet,” she said at the award ceremony in Stockholm Thursday.
While Mestic isn’t guaranteed to be sold at H&M or the company’s other retail businesses, a spokesperson told The Huffington Post that the point of the project is “to spur ideas that could have the potential to create a more sustainable fashion future,” adding, “Hopefully, they will be able to have an impact on the fashion industry as a whole.”
The future of fashion looks crappy, and we’re all for it.
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— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Too often, we do vacation the same way we do life: overbooked, over-programmed and hopelessly plugged in to technology. It takes intention ― and often an epic location ― to plan a trip that provides true relaxation.
These are just the places to do so. Whether your idea of relaxation is a quiet mountain hike, a beachside nap or a cooking class, this lineup has got you covered. Take a look, then take a break.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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