Hasta La Gadget!

With Apple finally and formally taking the gloves off in the smart home speaker fight, Amazon and Google have no choice but to pick up the pace. So far, the Amazon Echo and Google Home have been marketed mostly at tech savvy adults. Google’s new ads for the Home, however, position it as something young and hip users will also … Continue reading

Samantha Bee tore into President Donald Trump on Wednesday for the way he responded to last weekend’s terror attack in London.

In the wake of the attack, Trump posted several tweets criticizing London Mayor Sadiq Khan for trying to give comfort to constituents. Khan said: “You will see an increased police presence today, including armed officers and uniformed officers. There is no reason to be alarmed by this. We are the safest global city in the world. You saw last night as a consequence of our planning, our preparation, the rehearsals that take place, the swift response from the emergency services tackling the terrorists and also helping the injured.”

Trump, however, took Khan’s statement completely out of context.

This prompted the “Full Frontal” host to ask Trump: “What is wrong with you?”

“Were you just fulfilling your annual Ramadan tradition of hurling insults at grief-stricken Muslims named Khan?” Bee asked, in reference to Trump’s attacks during the 2016 campaign on the parents of fallen war hero U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the U.K. asks to take a break from our ‘special relationship’ and starts seeing other countries,” Bee added.

Check out the full segment above.

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Neil Cavuto made headlines on Tuesday after issuing a stern critique of Donald Trump, calling out the president for scapegoating others when he should be blaming himself for distractions like Twitter feuds. 

The segment was praised by some and derided by many others ― namely the president’s supporters. 

At the end of his Wednesday broadcast, the Fox News host recapped some of the angry tweets he received, including messages that described him and his program as “fake news.” 

“There’s nothing ‘fake’ about what I said, bottom line,” Cavuto said. “Regular viewers of this program also know there’s nothing new about what I said.”

Cavuto vowed to cover the good and bad of Trump’s presidency, including the Russia investigation and stock market successes.

“I figure I’m on three hours a day between two networks here, so I’ve got time to cover both,” Cavuto said. “Fake is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. To a president who hates any bad press, ‘fake’ is coverage he doesn’t really like. But ‘fake’ can also be the tweets and remarks he makes that compound the media coverage he doesn’t like.” 

Watch the rest of Cavuto’s message in the video above.

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The Mexican government has announced new efforts to save the critically endangered vaquita from extinction, following a widespread advocacy campaign by groups including the World Wildlife Fund and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, actor Leonardo DiCaprio and billionaire Carlos Slim met Wednesday to mark the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding that will spark new efforts to save the animal, which researchers worry could become extinct by next year. Last month DiCaprio launched a Twitter campaign aimed at Mexican officials to encourage them to take action, an effort that led Peña Nieto to declare the country was focusing “all its efforts to prevent the extinction of the species.”

“Now more than ever, the world is looking for bold leadership at every level to tackle climate change and environmental conservation issues,” DiCaprio said in a statement after Wednesday’s meeting. “This action is a critical step towards ensuring that the Gulf of California continues to be both vibrant and productive, especially for species like the critically-endangered vaquita.”

The memorandum includes a permanent ban on fishing nets that often unintentionally trap the animals and an increase in enforcement for such an effort.

“Mexico understands its responsibility as one of the countries with greatest biodiversity,” Peña Nieto said in a statement. “That is why we have implemented an historic effort to avoid the extinction of a unique species in the world.”

The news was praised by groups including the WWF, which, alongside DiCaprio, began a signature campaign last month to urge increased protections for the vaquita. More than 200,000 people joined the call.

“Today’s agreement marks a key step forward in the fight to save the critically endangered vaquita and ensure a sustainable future for the people and wildlife of Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California,” the group said in a statement.

Populations of vaquitas, small, elusive porpoises nicknamed “pandas of the sea,” have plummeted in recent years following a spate of illegal fishing operations in their habitat, Mexico’s Gulf of California. It’s estimated there are fewer than 30 vaquitas left in the wild.

The animals are often caught in large gillnets used to catch a critically endangered species of fish called the totoaba, whose swim bladders are prized on the black market in parts of Asia. Called “aquatic cocaine,” the bladders can sell for $10,000 a kilogram.

In recent months, scientists, conservationists and the Mexican government have waged a desperate battle to save the vaquita, including an increase in patrols and the outsourcing of some policing efforts to the activist group Sea Shepherd. Some researchers are preparing efforts to trap the few vaquitas that remain and breed them in captivity; however, such efforts have never been undertaken before, and some fear it could kill more vaquitas in the process.

While such plans have remained controversial, the WWF said any efforts to sequester the animals must include attempts to return them to the wild once populations recover, like initiatives to protect the California condor.

“WWF believes that any effort to capture and provide sanctuary for the remaining vaquita and breed them in captivity must be explicitly linked to a plan to return vaquita to the wild once their habitat is secure,” the group said.

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Black service members are “substantially more likely” than white service members to be punished in four out of the five branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, according to a new study published by military advocacy group Protect Our Defenders.

Data obtained by the organization through the Freedom of Information Act revealed that black service members were as much as two and a half times more likely than their white counterparts to face court-martial or nonjudicial punishment in an average year. The disparity is notable, considering white service members make up the largest racial group in the military.

These results raise questions about about discrimination among military officials responsible for disciplining service members, Protect Our Defenders said in a press release.

Retired Col. Don Christensen, the group’s president and former chief prosecutor of the Air Force, claimed that military leaders are aware of the racial disparity and have done nothing to address it.

“Top brass has also vigorously opposed any suggestion that the commander-controlled justice system is hindered by conflicts of interest or bias and has gone to great lengths to tout the fairness of the system,” he said in a statement. “However, the military’s own data raises serious challenges to the idea that the system in its current form is capable of delivering impartial justice.”

Along with the report, Protect Our Defenders called on Congress to launch an investigation into any potential racial bias in the military’s justice system and to provide recommendations to resolve the issue.

Every military branch except the Coast Guard responded to the FOIA request for the study. Each branch provided different sets of data that spanned from 2005 to 2015, so comparing racial gaps between the service branches is difficult.

According to the analysis, data from the Air Force revealed some of the highest rates of racial disparity in the military justice system, with black airmen 71 percent more likely to face court-martial or nonjudicial punishment than white airmen.

Similarly, data from the Army showed that black soldiers were 61 percent more likely to face court martial than white soldiers. In the Marine Corps, black Marines were 32 percent more likely to be found guilty at court martial or a nonjudicial punishment proceeding. 

The only complete years ― 2014 to 2015 ― provided by the Navy showed that black sailors were 40 percent more likely to be sent to court martial.

Christensen told USA Today that the military’s lack of diversity may be to blame for the apparent racial disparity.

White service members make up the largest proportion of the military at 70 percent, according to a 2015 report by the Department of Defense. Black service members make up 17 percent of the military force. Those proportions are similar for active-duty officers: 77.2 percent of officers are white while 9.1 percent are black, according to the 2015 report.

“If you look at the leadership of military it skews very dramatically white and male and you would imagine that the closer relationships will be with white male subordinates,” Christensen told USA Today. “Hence they probably get the benefit of the doubt that the African American males don’t.”

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a HuffPost request for comment but a spokesman told veterans news site Task & Purpose that the Department of Defense will review Protect Our Defenders’ report.

“It is longstanding Department of Defense policy that service members must be afforded the opportunity to serve in an environment free from unlawful racial discrimination,” Pentagon spokesman Johnny Michael said in a statement sent to the news site.

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