An earthquake that struck the southern city of Tainan in Taiwan early Saturday morning toppled an enormous 100-family high-rise building, leaving 11 people dead and 475 injured, according to CNN.
The 17-story building, which housed some 256 people, was reduced to rubble during the magnitude 6.4 earthquake, with some people rappelling down its side to safety or being rescued from the debris in its aftermath. According to BBC, 30 people are still missing.
CNN reports that a 10-day-old baby was among the casualties in the building.
When asked why she thinks her son Jeb Bush would make a great president, Barbara Bush summed it up thusly: “I adore my child.”
The Republican presidential candidate brought mom along to an interview with CNNthis week, the latest in a series of appearances the two have made on the campaign trail of late.
And Barbara’s role in this campaign isn’t just confined to boasting about her baby boy. To CNN, she began fighting her son’s battles, too, addressing mean comments that playground bully Donald Trump has said about Jeb. Jeb, for his part, told his mother to “be careful,” a warning which she promptly ignored.
Jeb Bush is “not dumb as a rock,” said Barbara, making a statement that has not yet been verified by fact-checkers.
If you already own a TiVo, you can access your saved shows and live TV in any other room (ethernet or MOCA connection required) with these discounted TiVo Minis, no service fee required.
Still haven’t joined the TiVo family? The TiVo Roamio OTA is the perfect DVR for cord cutters, and you can score a refurb for just $30 right now, though you’ll need to pay a $15/month service fee. [Refurb TiVo Roamio OTA, $30]
This isn’t just the best deal we’ve seen on the simple-but-capable Garmin Forerunner 10. It’s one of the best prices we’ve ever seen on any GPS-equipped fitness tracker. [Garmin Forerunner 10 GPS Watch, $85]
Today you can grab a Fitbit Aria smart scale on eBay for an all-time low $85, and with no tax for most. The Aria will give you your weight, BMI, and body fat % and of course sync them to your Fitbit app to track changes over time. [Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Weight/Body Fat/BMI Digital Smart Scale, $85]
You know all of those little Apple USB charging bricks sitting in your drawer? The clever NomadPlus USB charger can transform one into a travel-friendly portable battery pack, and it’s down to just $15 today.
While undoubtedly clever, the NomadPlus has always been a tough sell at its usual $40, but you can grab one on Amazon right now for $15 shipped. That’s still a decent price premium over a standalone battery pack, but if you appreciate good design, and only want to carry around a single charging solution, it’s a fantastic deal. It would also make a great gift for your less tech-savvy friends who would never remember to charge a standalone battery pack. [NomadPlus iPhone Charger, $15]
Anker’s SoundCore Sport features 10 hours of battery life, IPX7 water resistance, ad a built-in microphone for handsfree calls. To be fair, we do see slightly cheaper water-resistant speakers from time to time, but we’ve heard nothing but good things about Anker products, so this might be worth a few extra bucks. [Anker SoundCore Sport Bluetooth Speaker, $26 with code NKJTGELK]
Whether you’re leaving your cat alone for a few days, or just want to keep your pets satisfied and quiet on mornings when you’re sleeping in, this $31 electronic pet feeder can dispense up to five meals on the schedule of your choosing. [PetSafe Electronic Pet Feeder, $31]
If you can’t afford an Oculus Rift and a computer to run it, this Google Cardboard-compatible View-Master headset only requires your phone, and can be yours for just $18 (if you’re a Prime member, that is). That’s only about two dollars less than its previous low price, but this is still one of the best “premium” Google Cardboard viewers out there. [Viewmaster VR With Google Cardboard Support, $18]
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Today at a campaign stop in Manchester, New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton gathered a powerhouse crew of women who wear the pants, together: From left, New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).
Both Clinton and Sanders are campaigning in New Hampshire following last night’s debate, though Clinton has announced she will leave the swing state on Sunday to visit Flint, Michigan, to be debriefed by Mayor Karen Weaver.
Senator Stabenow, above, has been outspoken about the way race factored into the way Flint’s poisoned water was dealt with by Governor Rick Snyder. Last month, she told Yahoo News, “The sad, outrageous reality is that people were not paying attention to what the residents were saying because they weren’t a priority. [The state] would react differently when their friends that lived in those areas called … that’s just a fact that [Flint was] treated differently than others would be treated.”
Jeb clearly adores his mom—some might say to an alarming degree (some people like me, for instance). And Barb clearly feels... something for Jeb. Whether it’s pity, casual indifference, or active contempt is impossible to say. One thing is for certain, however: When it comes to bullying and emasculating Jeb, Barbara Bush is queen.
So Donald Trump—take a seat. Let the master show you how it’s done.
Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell passed away on February 4th, on the eve of the 45th anniversary of his mission to the moon. He was 85 years old.
Mitchell was born on September 17th, 1930 in Hereford Texas, and later attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology, where he studied Industrial Management. Following his graduation in 1952, he joined the US Navy, where he became a pilot, flying A3 aircraft off of aircraft carriers USS Bon Homme Richard and USS Ticonderoga and later became a test pilot.
In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit, and Mitchell realized that that he wanted the same thing: to go into space:
I made the decision in 1957, when Sputnik went up. I was on a carrier in the Pacific, just about to come back to the States for some test pilot work, and when Sputnik went up I realized humans were going to be right behind it, so I started orienting my career toward that at that time.
That prompted him to go back to school, where he earned another degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Navy’s Post Graduate School in 1961. from there, he attended MIT and earned his Doctorate of Science (ScD) in Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1964.
In 1966, NASA selected Mitchell to train as an astronaut as part of Astronaut Group 5. Amongst his classmates were Vance D. Brand (who later flew on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project), Charles Duke (Apollo 16), Fred Haise Jr. (Apollo 13), James Irwin (Apollo 15), Kenneth Mattingly (Apollo 16), Bruce McCandless (Challenger and Discovery mission specialist), John Swigert (Apollo 13), and others.
Well, when we first came in, were first selected in our group, we had a choice—rather, we had the right to state a preference for what technical assignment would we like, and there were lists of technical assignments, concentrating on the lunar module, concentrating on the command module, concentrating on the ancillary equipment like suits and other equipment, and I don’t remember them all at this point. But I chose to request lunar module as being my prime technical assignment, and I got that assignment.
Following his training, Mitchell was designated as the backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 10. He originally joined astronaut Alan Shepard Jr. (Commander) and Stuart A. Roosa (Command Module Pilot) for the crew of Apollo 13, only to have their mission bumped to Apollo 14 to give Shepard more time to train.
Apollo 14 launched on January 31st, 1971, and headed for the Fra Mauro highlands, the original destination for the aborted Apollo 13 mission. Shepard and Mitchell landed on the moon on February 5th, and Mitchell became the 6th person to walk on the lunar surface. There, they performed a pair of spacewalks: during the first, they deployed several scientific experiments and equipment, while on the second, they attempted to find the rim of the Cone Crater to collect samples. This walk was cut short when flight controllers became alarmed at how strenuous their EVA had become. Unbeknownst to them, they came within 20 meters of their target.
The mission was a major scientific success, however: while the astronauts set records for the EVA times, they brought back a 94 pounds of samples from the lunar surface, which were used in countless experiments back on Earth.
Despite their scientific work, Apollo 14 became more famous for other activities: Shepard brought along a golf club and a pair of balls to take a couple swings, while Mitchell threw a javelin (a lunar scoop handle).
The pair left from the lunar surface on February 6th, and returned home, splashing down three days later in the Pacific Ocean. Years after his return, Mitchell ruminated on his experiences for NASA’s Oral History project:
Yes. That’s a powerful experience, and to me, that was the culmination of my being, and what can I learn from this? What is it we are learning. That’s important, because I think what we’re trying to do is discover ourselves and our place in the cosmos, and we don’t know. We’re still looking for that. And that was a major effort. Even though we might have talked in technological and political terms and financial terms and how many billions of bucks are we spending, the real purpose is to find ourselves and our place in the larger scheme of things.
The spaceflight would be Mitchell’s only one: while he served as backup LMP for Apollo 16, he retired from NASA and the Navy in 1972. He became a proponent of paranormal phenomena and Unidentified Flying Objects, claiming to have an psychic experience on his ride back to Earth. He later founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and became a business consultant.
With Mitchell’s passing, the entirety of the Apollo 14 crew are now gone: Shepard died in 1998 from leukemia, while Roosa passed away in 1994 from pancreatitis. It also marks the first time that an entire lunar crew has passed away, and only seven of the moon walkers are still alive.
In a statement following Mitchell’s passing, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden noted:
“Edgar spoke poetically about seeing our home planet from the moon saying: ‘Suddenly, from behind the rim of the moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth … home.’
It’s pretty well established by now that Ted Cruz, a man whose tendency to fudge the truth is not really a secret, made a big ol’ goof right before the Iowa caucuses.
Earlier this week, Sen. Ted Cruz and his campaign staff apologized to presidential candidate for Ben Carson for emailing voters to falsely claim that Carson was dropping out of the presidential race.
Now, a series of voicemails show that the Cruz campaign stopped at nothing to get the word of Carson’s rumored dropout out in time before the caucuses. The voicemails say that the campaign has “breaking news” about Carson’s dropping out of the race, asking voters to “inform any Carson caucus-goers of this news and urge them to caucus for Ted instead.” The caller clearly claimed that Carson was dropping out:
“Hello, this is the Cruz campaign with breaking news: Dr. Ben Carson will be suspending campaigning following tonight’s caucuses.”
Carson’s campaign released the recording on YouTube Friday:
The Carson campaign released not one, but two of these voicemails on Friday. In fact, at the time, Ben Carson was not dropping out of the race at all. In fact, he made the 1,400-mile trip from Iowa to his home in Florida, a trip solely devoted to getting a new change of clothes—a totally normal and rational thing for a candidate to do in the middle of a presidential campaign.
Apologies for the Bill Maher clip, but here’s feminist icon Gloria Steinem offering an interesting theory as to why so many young women are supporting Bernie Sanders instead of Hillary Clinton.
In the middle of a larger discussion about the Democratic primary, Steinem said:
“Women are more for [Hillary Clinton] than men are...First of all, women get more radical as we get older, because we experience...Not to over-generalize, but...Men tend to get more conservative because they gain power as they age, women get more radical because they lose power as they age.
And, when you’re young, you’re thinking, where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie...”
Maher responded by joking that he would never be allowed to say that because explaining women’s political persuasion within the context of sexual attraction is, well, sexist.
According to a recent USA Today poll, Sanders has a 19-point lead over Hillary Clinton, 50% to 31%, among Democratic women between the ages 18-34.
The 21-year-old president of an Ivy League fraternity has been arrested in connection with an alleged sexual assault that occurred last weekend at his fraternity house.
Wolfgang Ballinger, the president of Psi Upsilon at Cornell University, was charged with three felonies, according to Buzzfeed News: first-degree attempted rape, first-degree criminal sexual assault, and first-degree sex abuse.
With the assistance of the victim, police were able to identify Ballinger as the perpetrator. At the request of the police through his attorney, Ballinger turned himself in to Cornell Police investigators Feb. 4 and was charged with first-degree attempted rape, a Class C felony; first-degree criminal sexual act, a Class B felony; and first-degree sexual abuse, a Class D felony.
Ballinger was arraigned in Ithaca City Court and was remanded to the Tompkins County Jail in lieu of $25,000 cash bail or $50,000 bond. Ballinger is due back in Ithaca City Court on Tuesday, Feb. 9 at 11 a.m. for a preliminary hearing.
Ballinger, from New York City posted an autobiographical video about his life on YouTube last month:
According to the Cornell Daily Sun, the fraternity is not on interim suspension. The national headquarters of Psi Upsilon also suspended the Cornell chapter after Ballinger’s arrest, saying in a statement that “any form of sexual harassment, is against our policy and in opposition of the values of Psi Upsilon.”
During an interview with Us Weekly at a pseudo-charity event for children last week, Kristin Cavallari revealed that she is feeling relaxed these days.
“Now that this is my third [child], I’m so much more relaxed now,” she said, referring to the recent birth of her daughter Saylor. “My milk supply is amazing, and I think it’s because I’m not as stressed out.”
An assault that started in a Baltimore bar early Saturday morning made its way out onto the street, resulting in a minivan driver speeding into other vehicles and at least one person along the sidewalk, according to video and accounts from police.
The incident occurred at around 2:15 a.m. on Saturday morning, according to Baltimore Police Department spokesman T.J. Smith during a media briefing streamed to the department Facebook page later that day. Here’s a harrowing 17-minute video of the incident, in which the chaotic scene unfolds fairly early:
According to The Baltimore Sun, police identified the suspect driving the van in the incident as 37-year-old Orlando Redd. It happened in Fells Point, an area in which the Sun reports an unrelated triple shooting occurred earlier that day.
Upon investigation, police believe the suspected driver, Redd, was victim to an assault in a bar on the street and was under the influence of alcohol. Smith added that Redd is in custody and will receive a “myriad of charges,” though police are currently unable to identify his attackers.
Smith said the charges are all traffic-related as of right now, and the department will partner with state attorney’s office to press additional charges.
A woman exiting a bar on the street is the only reported injury from the scene, and Smith added that police took a suspect into custody after finding him a few blocks away. Smith said she is in serious but stable condition at a local hospital.
“That female, right now, is in serious condition with multiple traumas to her body—including her pelvis, broken ribs, multiple fractures to her skull, a laceration to her hip and bruised lung,” Smith said in the briefing.
Smith said police do know about the event and that the investigation is still underway. The first minute of the video lacks sound, but audio picks up with about 14 minutes remaining in the news conference:
Due to the timing of the event—the early morning hours when most leave bars in that area—Smith said it was fortunate that the tragedy wasn’t larger. Smith commended officers for a prompt arrival and added that the fact more people were not injured is a “blessing.”
The investigation is still underway, and we’ll update more as we know it.
“Take a hike, man!” said an irritated Jeb! Bush on Saturday, clearly not ready to talk about the exclamation point (!) that has come to follow him around during his bid for president, like a dark, gloomy cloud!
At a campaign event in Bedford, New Hampshire, Yahoo! News asked the Republican presidential candidate a simple enough question: what gives with the “!”? Jeb! was not happy.
How the tune has changed for Jeb! Just last week in Iowa, he was proud to be an exclamation point!
In what we can only hope was a sign of what’s to come, the ABC GOP debate kicked off with the most bizarre candidate walk-out any of us will likely ever see. Ben Carson appeared to refuse to go on stage, the moderators literally forgot about John Kasich, and both Carson and Trump had to eventually be begged before finally shuffling out from the shadows. This candidate clusterfuck alone almost makes the entire, terrible election worth it.
The moderators quickly blamed the disaster on the loud applause, ostensibly making it difficult for the candidates to hear their own names. Still, everyone else until Carson seemed to manage fine. If you have any idea what the hell just happened, please do let us know down below.
After starting off with the most perfect entrance possible, it looks like the candidates have finally gotten their shit together. Or at the very least, Chris Christie has, because he just tore Marco Rubio to shreds.
Chris Christie has been repeating the refrain that his non-governor opponents won’t be able to take the pressure since this election first started.
When you talk about the Hezbollah sanctions act that you list as one of your accomplishments, you weren’t even there to vote for it. That’s not leadership—that’s truancy.
Rubio did technically sponsor the legislation Christie is referring to, but according to the Congressional record for that day, Rubio was indeed listed as absent. Christie ended on a surprisingly reasonable and non-explicitly vulgar note, saying, “I like Marco Rubio. He’s a smart person and a good guy, but he simply does not have the experience to be President of the United States and make these decisions.”
Marco, for his part, was clearly not prepared to handle this sort of biting criticism. After opening with, “I think the experience is not just what you did but how it worked out” (what?), Rubio briefly touched on the fact that Christie was a genuinely terrible governor before veering off to ramble about Obama. And Chris Christie immediately called him out on it:
This is what Washington, D.C. does: The drive-by shot at the beginning with incorrect and incomplete information, and then the memorized, 25-second speech. That is exactly what his advisers gave him. When you’re president of the United States, when you are a governor of a state, that memorized speech doesn’t solve one problem for one person.
The crowd loved it, and Christie was right on point. Marco Rubio was indeed stuck on repeat.
And when Rubio tried to respond by shaming Christie for “not wanting to go back” to Jersey after the massive snowstorm, the jeering directed (presumably) at Rubio nearly drowned him out. Rubio bashed Obama some more, Christie went back and tore Rubio to shreds—it was beautifully, uncomfortably brutal.
Which isn’t to say that Chris Christie isn’t a Bad Man himself. His record is filled with low-hanging fruit—it’s just that apparently no one told Marco how to grab it.
It’s a big night for firsts—mostly in terms of Ben Carson’s little pre-show nap. But now, Jeb just got what might have been his very first Trump own of the election.
In answering a question about eminent domain, Trump started bullshitting his way through when Jeb cut in with “How tough is it to take property from an elderly woman?” Trump, likely frustrated both by Jeb and the fact that he was being forced to respond to a genuine criticism, barked “let me talk” before literally putting his finger to his lips and shushing Jeb like a child.
The audience—which has been particularly rowdy this evening—booed the hell out of Trump for the infantilizing move. Trump responded to the universal disgust directed at him by saying, “That’s all of his donors and special interests out there.” The audience booed some more, and so Trump, of course, doubled down on accusing the audience of being all donors: “The reason they’re not loving is that I don’t want their money.”
The crowd booed some more. The moderator tried to cut in. And Jeb—poor, forgotten Jeb—was positively glowing.
On the night that the Republican debate in New Hampshire opened with the candidates unable to follow basic instructions, the liberal end of the political spectrum offered up something that at least aimed to be intentionally funny: Bernie Sanders’ expected cameo next to his new impersonator, tonight’s SNL host Larry David.
But Sanders did not appear alongside that impersonation, as is often SNL custom. (David’s only bit as Sanders was a pre-recorded Curb Your Enthusiasm parody, though Sanders did appear briefly after the above sketch to do his best version of David.) Instead, Sanders appeared in a sketch in which David’s character is the captain of a sinking ship who objects to women and children being loaded onto lifeboats before he, the member of a wealthy family—a setup that allowed Sanders to lightly mock his own populist shtick.
Something interesting does happen towards the end of the cameo, though, when Sanders’ character jokes about changing his name (“Bernie Sanderswitzki”) when he gets to America so it “doesn’t sound quite so Jewish.” Even as a joke it was a visible recognition by Sanders of the question of whether or not America would elect a Jewish president. (Ted Cruz, for one, may be betting that they won’t.)
MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE--New Hampshire! Land of granite, and heroin, and many white people unironically enjoying Republican political events.
Upon arriving in downtown Manchester last night, I stumbled directly into a debate watching party hosted by National Review, held in a vast and undecorated conference room at the main hotel. There was something satisfying about knowing I was, at least for a moment, in the least cool place in the United States. Inside the hotel’s conference space every news organization has a loud presence, like a mini-convention. MSNBC and Bloomberg have elaborate state sets; the AP and CBS had desks for dozens of reporters, which, to be honest, seems a little overboard, okay?
I’m traveling here with a friend who is traveling with a bunch of his friends, all of whom were massed in the back of the National Review party, scoffing. One friend, who is large and very liberal and very voluble, kept bellowing out angry phrases during the debate at top volume.
“YEAH, CARPET BOMB EM!” he screamed in response to a Ted Cruz line.
“YEAH, WE CAN DO WHATEVER WE WANT!” People sitting in the back rows were actively moving away from him at that point.
John Kasich told viewers to hang onto their seatbelts when he’s elected president.
“SEATBELTS!!!” yelled our friend. Eventually we had our own space back there.
The room was full of whites. Young whites, old whites, angry whites, whites with elaborate old-timey facial hair. Who are these whites, and what exactly do they want? That is the question that every political expert is searching for, here in New Hampshire.
Later, at a gas station, we saw an Airstream trailer that was entirely fitted out with John Kasich signs. John Kasich, surprisingly, was not living inside of it.
I can also report that all of the political ads that you hear about in the abstract but never see on TV are, in fact, on TV here in New Hampshire, and it is an effective way of dissuading Americans not to watch so much TV.
I am typing this in an Econo Lodge with weak wi-fi, drinking horrible hotel coffee, and today we will try to go to a Donald Trump rally. This is an extremely accurate picture of the thrilling life of a professional campaign trail reporter.
