Things are finally looking up for the Samsung Galaxy Fold.
After Samsung delayed the launch of its foldable phone, due to several reviewers reporting issues with their units, it appeared that the Fold was in a bit of a limbo.
But now, The Korea Herald reports that Samsung is close to announcing a new launch date, indicating that the company has fixed the issues that plagued the early Fold.
Samsung CEO DJ Koh told the outlet on Thursday that the company has “reviewed the defect caused from substances (that entered the device).” Samsung will reach a conclusion on the U.S. launch date “in a couple of days,” Koh added.
The Samsung Galaxy Fold is a $1,980 phone with top-notch specs and a foldable screen.
Originally, the Fold was scheduled to launch on April 26, but that date was scrapped after some of the early review units started breaking down. A few days ago, Samsung sent out an e-mail to potential Fold buyers, telling them their order would be automatically cancelled if the Fold doesn’t ship by May 31. None of that instilled much confidence that the Fold would appear in stores soon, but these new comments from Koh do sound like Samsung is at least close to fixing the Fold’s issues.
Koh also said that the phone’s launch would “not be too late” — which, imprecise as it is, might be interpreted as the launch happening before May 31. In any case, we should know more in the next couple of days.
The fighting has pushed 150,000 civilians from their homes, raising concerns of a new humanitarian crisis in northwest Syria [File: Ammar Abdullah/Reuters]
The government forces have captured the town of Qalaat al-Madiq in northwest Syria, some of its residents and a war monitor said on Thursday, as they push into the biggest remaining rebel territory.
Syria’s army, backed by Russian air power, launched ground operations this week against the southern flank of the rebel zone consisting of Idlib and parts of adjacent provinces.
The area is nominally protected by a Russian-Turkish deal agreed last year to avert a major new battle.
Qalaat al-Madiq was the rebel area closest to the Russian Hmeimim airbase at Latakia, which fighters have previously targeted with rocket fire.
It was also the entry point to rebel territory for many fighters and civilians who were evacuated from territory captured by the army under surrender deals negotiated with the Bashar al-Assad government over recent years.
Local residents said Syrian government forces had captured Qalaat al-Madiq and two nearby villages – Tal Hawash and Al-Karkat.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war-monitoring group said rebels had withdrawn there after being nearly encircled by the army.
The fighting has pushed 150,000 civilians from their homes, raising concerns of a new humanitarian crisis in northwest Syria.
Some 13 health facilities have been hit in the bombing, the US-based Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations, which funds some hospitals in the area, said on Wednesday.
In case you hadn’t heard the news, Avengers: Endgame has proven to be pretty popular.
So popular, in fact, that it recently knocked James Cameron’s Titanic down a podium place in the standings of biggest global box office money-makers of all time. Cameron’s movie used to be second, but it’s currently third.
On Wednesday night, Cameron took to social media to send his congratulations to Marvel and the Endgame crew.
It’s worth noting that Cameron has previously made some grumpy comments about the Avengers, so this may be his attempt (or at least his PR team’s attempt) to try and make amends.
Either way, with the Endgame money continuing to roll in, that line about the movie industry being bigger than ever certainly seems to be true.
Turns out Chris Evans broke all of these. Over the past few days, ever since the “spoiler embargo” on Avengers: Endgame was lifted, he’s been churning out videos he took during filming on pretty much a daily basis.
Here’s one where he literally tells Joe Russo he’s live tweeting, much to the glee of Robert Downey Jr.
And here’s another that features a charming little dance from Chris Hemsworth.
North Korea has fired at least one unidentified projectile from a location in the country’s northwest towards the east, South Korea‘s military says.
The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff had no other immediate details of the Thursday afternoon launch, which was the second such incident in the past five days.
“We are still analysing whether it is a single or multiple projectiles,” Kim Joon -Rak, a JCS spokesman told AFP news agency.
But analysts have said that if the North returns to the kind of longer-range banned weapons that it tested in 2017, when many feared a Washington-Pyongyang standoff could end in war, it will be a strong sign that a frustrated North Korea is turning away from diplomacy.
Reporting from Seoul, Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride said it was not clear yet if it was a missile.
“The fact that it was launched from the west side of the peninsula suggests that it was more than a long-range artillery or some sort of tactical battlefield system because in theory it would have to clear the Korean Peninsula. It suggests some sort of a missile launch,” he said.
Pyongyang earlier on Thursday described its earlier firing of rocket artillery and an apparent short-range ballistic missile on Saturday as a regular and defensive military exercise, and ridiculed South Korea for criticising the launches.
Deadlocked diplomacy
North Korea and the United States are currently deadlocked in diplomacy meant to rid the North of its nuclear arsenal.
Late on Wednesday, Stephen Biegun, the US Special Representative on North Korea, arrived in Seoul for talks with South Korean officials on the allies’ approach towards Pyongyang.
It is Biegun’s first visit to Seoul since the Hanoi summit between US President Donald Trump and the North’s leader Kim Jong Un collapsed without agreement.
North Korea conducts tests for ‘tactical guided weapon’: report (02:05)
North Korea wants widespread sanctions relief in return for disarmament steps that the United States has apparently seen as insufficient.
Longer-range ballistic missile tests, banned by the United Nations and seen as threatening by surrounding countries, would likely result in more sanctions.
Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington have refrained from calling Saturday’s launch a missile, which could jeopardise the ongoing diplomacy by violating UN Security Council resolutions as well as Kim’s promise of a freeze on long-range missile tests.
The North has said Saturday’s drill involved multiple Pyongyang “long-range multiple rocket launchers and tactical guided weapons”.
But experts say the North launched at least one short-range missile during the exercise, with a report on the 38 North website suggesting that it was a “direct import” of a Russian-produced Iskander.
“The debris generated by the launch in North Korea is a virtual match of a launch of Iskander conducted by Russia,” it said.
If North Korea imported Iskanders from Russia, the report added, “it has an existing capacity to deliver warheads to targets in South Korea with great precision”.
Inside Story: Why did Pyongyang fire new missiles? (25:00)
On the eve of the last presidential election, NBC’s “Nightly News” broadcast featured two skinny college students in jackets and ties, discussing the future of American politics.
They were co-founders of Students for Trump, a grassroots group that had tapped the social media power of Donald Trump’s populist movement — and of photos of bikini-clad co-eds in MAGA hats — to become the real estate mogul’s standard-bearer on college campuses around the country.
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“I see Donald Trump as reviving the Republican Party,” one of them, John Lambert, declared with a confidence uncommon for a college junior.
Last month, Lambert, now 23, showed up in the news again. This time, he had been indicted for alleged wire fraud. According to the federal government, at the same time he was building a nationwide political network and serving as one of the most visible young faces of Trump’s populist movement, Lambert was also posing online as a high-powered New York lawyer, eventually making off with tens of thousands of dollars in fees he stole from dupes seeking legal services.
Lambert’s rise to prominence and recent indictment offer a cautionary tale of an ambitious young man caught up in Trump’s allure — a get-rich-quick fantasy of the American dream — who allegedly managed to create his own reality on the internet, only to have the real world come barging in.
It also shines a spotlight on the chaos and confusion of Trump’s ramshackle 2016 campaign, and the cast of characters who sought fame and fortune by riding in his slipstream. Trump ran as a “law and order” candidate. But time and again, the mogul has drawn into his fold outlaws and alleged outlaws, from former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and personal fixer Michael Cohen all the way down. Though he may be the youngest, Lambert is not the first prominent Trump partisan to spend 2016 taunting Hillary Clinton about her supposed criminality, only to end up facing time in the slammer himself instead.
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During the 2016 campaign, Lambert was everywhere—pumping Trump on television, at campaign rallies and on campuses.
But since his indictment, Lambert has gone silent. He has not yet entered a plea or spoken publicly about the charges. He did not respond to emails, and calls to a cellphone number provided by a friend returned an error message. Calls and messages to numbers for Lambert’s mother went unreturned. The only lawyer listed for Lambert in court records, public defender Julia Gatto, said she represented Lambert just for his bail hearing and was no longer in touch with him.
In addition to public records, social media posts and news reports, much of this account of Lambert’s upbringing and rapid rise to prominence is based on interviews with those who have known him over the years, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want their names associated with fraud charges.
Growing up in East Tennessee, Lambert enjoyed the trappings of a comfortable American childhood. According to friends, he was close with his mother and stepfather, and regularly accompanied his grandmother to church.
“At a young age his parents taught values of morality and deep fiscal responsibility to him,” according to a bio that had been posted on the Students for Trump website. “He comes from a family of multigenerational business owners who helped to build the infrastructure of America.”
He was into cars, and when he was old enough to drive, a friend recalls,his mother bought him a brand-new BMW.
Lambert was also entrepreneurial. He started a social media management business while still in high school, and friends remember him voraciously watching the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.” The 2013 flick dramatizes hard-charging investor Jordan Belfort’s rise from obscurity to riches. It ends with Belfort’s descent into infamy for masterminding a securities fraud scheme.
The film is a morality play—the lesson being that cheaters eventually get caught. But his indictment suggests that Lambert took it as an inspiration. Friends say he loved the lavish lifestyle that Belfort, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, achieved before going to prison.
“It motivated him,” a friend of Lambert’s from that time said of the film.
Lambert spent countless hours playing video games. He forged close friendships with boys outside his hometown, meeting them online and forming “clans” to play games like Arma, a tactical first-person shooter, together.
Another favorite game was LCPDFR, a modified version of the popular Grand Theft Auto franchise that allowed users to play as members of the Liberty City Police Department. The boys would split into teams to play cops and robbers. “He was always on the law enforcement side,” recalled the friend. “He didn’t really like to be on the other side.”
For college, Lambert headed off to neighboring North Carolina, to attend Campbell University, 30 miles south of Raleigh. There, he majored in Trust and Wealth Management, joined the college Republicans and aspired to go on to law school.
During the fall of his sophomore year, he joined forces with a fellow member of the campus GOP, freshman Ryan Fournier. Fournier had started a pro-Trump Twitter account that was taking off, and he enlisted Lambert’s help, making Lambert co-founder and vice chairman of Students for Trump. Lambertalso served as the group’s treasurer.
Students from around the country began sending the pair photos of themselves decked out in pro-Trump gear, and as the president’s campaign gained momentum, their efforts quickly took off. The group began growing its leadership ranks and founding chapters at what would become hundreds of campuses around the U.S.
“We’ve been told that we’re more organized than the actual Trump campaign,” Lambert boasted to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Like so many other tentacles of Trump’s chaotic grassroots movement, the group was not an official part of the campaign, but it did engage in ad hoc coordination with people on, and close to, Trump’s official operation.
Guido Lombardi, a friend and neighbor of Trump’s from New York, was among the first in the mogul’s orbit to engage with the group.
Lombardi, an Italian-born Mar-a-Lago member and Trump Tower resident, set up hundreds of Facebook affinity groups—with names like “Bikers for Trump” and “Latinos for Trump”—at the outset of the mogul’s campaign.
When the “Students for Trump” Twitter account created by Lambert and Fournier began to take off, the pair became the natural choices to take over the “Students for Trump” Facebook page Lombardi had already created.
A Trump campaign intern, in consultation with Lombardi, made the Campbell students administrators of the Facebook group. An early version of the Students for Trump website lists Lombardi, then in his mid-60s, as the group’s national director. Letterhead used by the group bears Trump Tower’s Manhattan address.
In February 2016, the group published an open letter stating that Fournier and Lambert had recently “met with Mr. Trump and top campaign officials to discuss what lies ahead for our organization. They expressed how proud they were of our efforts and members getting involved in the campaign.” One of the group’s leaders from that time said the meeting took place backstage at Trump’s February 5 rally in Florence, South Carolina.
Trump’s 2020 campaign disputes that there was any substantive relationship. “The Trump campaign did not coordinate or affiliate with Students for Trump in the 2016 campaign,” said Tim Murtaugh, director of communications for Trump’s reelection campaign, in a statement. “In fact, the campaign sent cease and desist letters to Fournier and Lombardo that specifically disavowed their deceptive activities and demanded that they stop presenting themselves as official representatives of the campaign. They may have attended campaign events, but only in their personal capacities.”
In an interview, Lombardi—who more recently has acted as a liaison between Trump and leaders of the European far right—distanced himself from Students for Trump,saying he stepped away not long after the students took over the Facebook group. Lombardi also criticized the group’s leadership. “It was clear to me already that some of the people in the organization were not necessarily there to promote the president, as much as to promote themselves,” Lombardi said. “There is only one superstar—his name is Trump. Donald doesn’t like to have prima donnas in the campaign.”
And Lombardi said he disapproved of the group’s use of photos featuring college-age women in skimpyoutfits. “I understand it works, but it wasn’t really the message I was trying to convey to the students,” Lombardi complained.
Fournier did not respond to repeated requests for comment. A statement on the Students for Trump website issued in response to Lambert’s indictment condemns Lambert and states that he cut ties with the group after Trump’s election.
Pictures of young women in Trump gear were indeed a top draw for the social media-driven group. One photo—of twin sisters standing outside in several inches of snow, sporting American flag bikinis, one of them wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat—earned news coverage as far away as Australia.
One of those sisters, Sarah Hagmayer, served as the group’s national spokeswoman, and an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education described her as Lambert’s girlfriend, the pair having met through the group. Hagmayer did not respond to requests for comment.
Another viral success was “The Chalkening,” a call by the group in spring 2016, as Trump was clinching the nomination, for students to cover their campuses in pro-Trump messages written in chalk. [There might be wire art of this-bs] Some of the resulting messages, such as “Fuck Mexicans” and “#StopIslam,” prompted fear and outrage on campuses across the country. But the Trump campaign approved. Dan Scavino, Trump’s former golf caddy and the campaign’s director of social media, promoted the Chalkening on Twitter.
While Lambert and Fournier were causing stirs nationwide, their digital escapades barely registered on Campbell’s sleepy campus of 3,000 undergrads, where administrators had not noticed that their students were becoming players in a presidential campaign. “All of a sudden these kids are appearing on the news, and none of us really knew them,” recalled Britt Davis, Campbell’s vice president for institutional advancement.
As the group grew, there was turnover and drama. Andrew Nixon, a friend of Lambert’s since adolescence who had become the group’s national field director, had gone in with Lambert on a venture to produce Students for Trump merchandise. But the pair had a falling out over money, with Nixon confronting Lambert in front of other group leaders, according to a person present.
Nixon and Lambert parted ways. Nixon was purged from the group, along with his deputy, and replaced with James Allsup, a student at Washington State University who would go on to speak at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the summer of 2017.
The merchandising money did not last long, though. The Trump campaign sent the group cease and desist letters, according to a former group leader, demanding that it stop using Trump’s name on its products. The group’s website now links to Trump’s official campaign store. (Don McGahn, who served as the Trump campaign’s counsel, did not respond to requests for comment.)
In May 2016, the group posted a photo of Lambert shaking hands with early Trump endorser Jeff Sessions, then a Republican senator from Alabama, at a campaign event. In it, the college sophomore enthusiastically points with his left hand toward the future attorney general, and appears to tower over him.
According to the federal government, Lambert had another gig of sorts that summer. It was around August 2016, prosecutors say, that Lambert began setting into motion a highly profitable scheme.
Along with an unnamed co-conspirator, Lambert allegedly created a business, called Headline Consulting, offering legal services over the internet and proceeded to create a profile on a freelancing platform under the alias “Eric Pope,” who was initially described as a legal consultant. Later, Lambert allegedly changed the profile to describe Pope as an attorney.
Despite this alleged undertaking, Lambert did not neglect the presidential campaign, continuing to pump Trump on social media and at campaign events. Hillary Clinton’s supposed criminality was an ongoing theme.
That same month, August, Lambert tweeted, “#WheresHillary – Drumming up lies to answer questions about her server. Amazing how a federal judge can ruin your day right @HillaryClinton.”
In October, Lambert headlined a Millennials for Trump rally at Georgia State University alongside Milo Yiannopoulos, a protégé of Trump campaign chairman Steve Bannon and at the time the tech editor of Breitbart News. At the event, Lambert, speaking with a slight twang and wearing an oversized watch on his left wrist, played a game with the audience called “Jail or White House?” In leading language, he described attributes of the presidential candidates and asked the crowd to shout out whether they deserved to be sent to jail or to the White House.
“Someone who thought it was a good idea to keep over 30,000 emails on a private server in a bathroom in New York state, and thought somehow that was legal. Jail, or White House?” Lambert asked.
“Jail!” the crowd shouted back at him.
“Someone who has provided over 30,000 jobs for Americans, no matter sex, gender, color, nothing. Provided nothing but jobs. Jail or White House?”
“White House!” the Crowd shouted.
Clinton did not go to jail, but Trump did go to the White House. Lambert, Fournier and a few of the group’s other top leaders attended Trump’s invitation-only election night party at the Midtown Hilton.
After that, Lambert left the group. He also left Campbell. The school says he was last enrolled in 2016, and that he did not graduate.
But he allegedly kept himself busy. Using “Eric Pope” and another alias, Lambert and his co-conspirator — who has been cooperating with the government — allegedly began roping in clients. Though prosecutors say he was operating out of North Carolina, Lambert allegedly used phone spoofing services to list numbers with New York area codes in order to further the perception he was operating out of Manhattan.
Meanwhile, the alleged scheme grew more elaborate. At some point, prosecutors say, Lambert created a website for a fictional New York law firm, Pope & Dunn. The fake firm’s slick site lists an address in New York’s financial district and declares, “Pope & Dunn have been known as a leading firm for innovation and traditional efficiency for decades.” It also lists a stable of fake attorneys with credentials from top schools. Like the real Donald Trump, the fake Eric Pope attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Pope also attended New York University’s law school, the website claims, boasting, “He is sought after for his experience with financial and corporate matters due to his ability to mitigate legal scenarios while keeping the growth of his clients’ business a focal point.”
Some of the fake attorney bios appear to have been copied and pasted directly from those of real lawyers on the website for Cravath, Swain & Moore, a top-flight New York law firm, according to New York Law Journal.
Around the summer of 2017, Lambert allegedly landed a client who was having problems with a credit reporting agency. Over the next several months, the government says, the client drained their retirement savings account to pay Lambert fees totaling more than $10,000, only to have Lambert stop responding to the client’s emails. Another dupe allegedly paid Lambert $1,500 for help drafting a will. Lambert also allegedly bilked money from an accountant working on behalf of an IT company in Texas, from a skin-care company and from a printing company. All told, the government says, the PayPal account used by Lambert in the scheme took in more than $50,000.
Meanwhile, Students for Trump was being scrutinized by the Federal Election Commission. As of February 2018, the FEC had sent the group nine letters seeking financial information the group was legally required to report, according to the Daily Beast. The group blamed Lambert for the lapse.
“As you will see, all records are under John Lambert, who is no longer with SFT and hasn’t been with us for some time,” a spokeswoman told the Daily Beast at the time. In April 2018, the FEC shut down the group’s committee, though Students for Trump continues to operate as a grassroots group on social media.
In the years since the election, Lambert stayed in touch with friends. They were under the impression he was working at a law firm or doing some sort of business consulting — at least, until last month.
As late as Monday, April 15, one longtime friend of Lambert’s said he exchanged text messages with the young Trump supporter and got no indication that anything was amiss. The next day, Lambert was arrested.
When Lambert stopped responding to communications, friends became worried. They learned of his arrest by Googling his name and finding a New York Law Journal article about it.
“He’s been a good friend to me, and I think overall he’s a nice guy,” said the friend who texted with Lambert the day before his arrest. “It kind of shocked me when I heard about this.”
Lambert appeared in court in New York in late April and was released on $20,000 bail. He stands charged of one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, each of which carries up to 20 years in prison if he is convicted, though the maximum sentence is rarely imposed. He is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing on May 29.
In the meantime, those who rode the Trump Train alongside him are sorting through their confusion—wondering how someone they admired and believed in could have been an alleged fraudster all along.
“The John I knew—this is just out of character for him. He cares deeply about his friends and his family,” said Abbie Green, a friend of Lambert’s who served as the group’s national recruitment director. “He was maybe caught up with the wrong people and distracted by the glamour of a legal career. He’s very smart, he has the skills, so I’m just surprised he would take a shortcut to pursue his dreams.”
Green predicted that Lambert would bounce back. “I think he’ll definitely learn from this experience,” she said. “He was never one to make the same mistake twice.”
Despite Lambert’s personal problems, and the campaign’s disavowal, the group he launched continues to enjoy the president’s seal of approval. On Saturday, Trump retweeted a message from Students for Trump to his 60 million followers. “With President Trump leading us,” it read, “America is a BETTER and SAFER place.”
Despite a season filled with inexplicable (arguably unjustified) twists, Game of Thrones Episode 4 Season 8 has begun a seemingly inevitable march toward crowning the most rote successor to the Iron Throne possible: Jon Snow. Or, if we’re being nihilistic, continuing the reign of Cersei Lannister.
But if there were any justice in this world (and to be fair, there might not be), the best and most thematically appropriate wild card that should reign over the Seven Kingdoms is Sansa Stark and Tyrion Lannister. And their potential ascension is far more than just wishful thinking.
What began as the most inappropriate couple might into the saviors of the Seven Kingdoms.
Image: hbo
Surely we’ve all noticed the substantial moments shared between Sansa and Tyrion throughout Season 8.
First there was the reunion which — while tinged with some serious dunking courtesy of Queen of Shade Sansa Stark — packed an immense emotional and political punch. Then in the crypts there was Sansa’s regretful admission to Tyrion that, “it’d never work between us.” But the only reason she gave was the Dragon Queen, and we’re not too sure she’ll survive the next episode. From a different perspective, this was Sansa basically telling Tyrion about how it could work between them.
Also who could forgot that tender kiss on the hand later in the battle, as they both decide to go out fighting against the wights. And finally, despite it being a controversial move, Sansa confiding in Tyrion about Jon’s parentage felt like an unexpectedly natural example of what a true political power couple looks like.
But our bid for the Sansa x Tyrion 2020 ticket for the throne goes beyond a ship we see developing. There’s textual evidence, logical standing, foreshadowing, great storytelling, and even prophecy that supports their reign.
“Their union would finally heal the festering wound that first lead to the War of the Five Kings several seasons ago.”
For one, their union would finally heal the festering wound that first lead to the War of the Five Kings several seasons ago. Long before Game of Thrones pivoted to a conflict between two “overly emotional” Mad Queens — who appear hell bent on killing each other so the more “electable” male heir Jon Snow can take the throne — it was a story about two feuding families at its core.
Ending the show with a Stark/Lannister union traces back to the many times royal marriage has brought peace to the realm. Not to mention that this union also has precedent in the medieval history that the Lannister and Stark conflict is based on, since a marriage also ended the real-life War of Roses between Lancasters and Tudors.
As many characters have reminded us throughout the series, Sansa is also the key to the North’s loyalty. And after everything that’s happened, the North doesn’t appear to be ready to bend the knee to anyone but a true-born Stark (sorry Aegon/Jon).
Sansa earned her queenship — she never claimed it as just her right.
Image: hbo
Beyond that is the obvious factor of their unmatched cleverness (though Sansa has arguably surpassed Tyrion’s), and unique abilities to play the game without losing sight of the overarching morality that grounds their characters. That’s far less than we can say for either Jon or Daenerys.
The constant praise thrown at Jon as a leader is flat out unfounded. Every single time he’s been in a position of power over people or armies, he’s either failed (the Night’s Watch mutiny) or been bailed out by more competent people — namely woman (Sansa, Arya, Melisandre, Daenerys, Stannis). Also despite Varys logic, unwilling rulers have historically not done well in the Game of Thrones universe (see King Aegon III, a.k.a. Aegon the Unlucky).
And while Tyrion took some substantial hits to his CV over the past few seasons, it’s clear he’s better at the politics as usual from the first few seasons rather than the conquering military strategies required to put Dany on the throne.
Like Tyrion, Sansa has learned the best lessons from the worst people in the game who tortured her. Sansa became an unequivocal tactical and leadership genius by learning how to wield power against enemies to scheme for an ultimate good. The showrunners now label her a master manipulator for strategically divulging the secret about Jon to Tyrion in Episode 4.
But beyond politics, she’s also outsmarted nearly ever other person on Game of Thrones when it comes to battle strategy.
If Sansa hadn’t acted on her instincts and let Jon have his way during the Battle of the Bastards, Winterfell would still belong to the Boltons. More recently, if Daenerys and her counselors had listened to Sansa, they wouldn’t have prematurely sent their armies out before they were battle ready, and they’d still have Rhaegal.
Unlike either Jon or Daenerys, Tyrion and Sansa have for better and worse been raised by the cruel political system that defines Westeros. In many ways, King’s Landing is their abusive home, making them grow into people who not only understand how to manage it but also how desperately it needs to be reformed.
Tyrion and Sansa deserve the Iron Throne because each knows how vulnerable people suffer most at the hands of a cruel, autocratic monarch.
More than anything, Tyrion and Sansa deserve the Iron Throne because each knows how vulnerable people suffer most at the hands of a cruel, autocratic monarchy.
As Tyrion said back in Season 1, he’s always had a soft spot for “cripples, bastards, and broken things.” And Sansa became an equally fierce advocate for those who get crushed and forgotten beneath the wheel of power like her Northerners — as evidenced by her transformational relationships with both Theon and her “bastard brother” Jon.
Out of anyone on the show, both Tyrion and Sansa have made the fiercest arguments for tearing down the wheel.
Daenerys might’ve started by genuinely wanting to make a better world, but the show has gone out of its way to re-characterize her as more lustful for power than good natured. And the tension between her and Sansa only highlights how only one of them truly understands what breaking the wheel would require (hint: it isn’t Dany).
Meanwhile Jon continues to be a staunch moral advocate for the downtrodden. But like Ned Stark, he lacks any of the cunning necessary to have even a slight chance of protecting those who need protecting most from the zero sum game of thrones.
Sansa and Tyrion have suffered the trauma of a bad monarch.
Image: hbo
But we all know it doesn’t matter if they deserve the Iron Throne. What evidence is there to support that they might actually do so?
To be fair, we do think it’s a long shot based on how Season 8’s endgame has been shacking out so far. But there is tons of evidence to support it for those who’ve been paying close attention.
Since his first ever appearance in the books, Tyrion has been subtly associated with kingly symbolism. When Jon meets him for the first time in book one outside the feast at Winterfell, he describes how “the light from within threw his shadow clear across the yard, and for just a moment, Tyrion Lannister stood as tall as a king.” George R. R. Martin is known for sneaking in subtle foreshadowing to major twists in this exact way, using word play to plant the seed (see: Hodor).
This reference to Tyrion’s kingly shadow is recalled in a key scene between him and Varys in Season 2 when they discuss the nature of power. “Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less,” Varys tells Tyrion. “And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”
You just don’t get it like Sansa does, Daenerys.
Image: hbo
Meanwhile Sansa’s queenly handling of the North during its most vulnerable time in history (aside from the last Long Night) is proof enough of her readiness to rule. Also, over the past several seasons, Sansa’s become a perfect foil to Cersei — both a mirrored image yet exact opposite of the current queen.
Sansa’s become the perfect foil to Cersei — both a mirrored image yet exact opposite of the current queen.
From Sansa’s hairstyle, to her political savvy, or dedication to family, and even her recent role as the lady of the castle boosting morale for the women and children during a siege during the Battle of Winterfell, she’s been acting with increasing queenliness. That’s not to mention the foreshadowing that she was supposed to be a different Lannister’s queen in the first season, before even getting married off to Tyrion instead.
Wouldn’t it be a perfect twist of poetic justice if the “younger, more beautiful” queen prophesied to cast Cersei aside wasn’t Margaery or even Daenerys at all. All along it was Sansa, the “little dove” Cersei underestimated as a pawn in her game, never realizing she’d lead her to become her greatest rival.
Sansa has been quietly preparing for queenhood for almost as long as Daenerys. And unlike Dany, Sansa’s done little to cast doubt on her ability to rule with competence and fairness. Perhaps Dany’s more spotty record is another source of Sansa’s continued distrust of the Dragon Queen, who claims the throne is hers out of divine birthright and might rather than proof she’d be good.
Tyrion is one of the few men who would listen and do right by a Queen Sansa.
Image: hbo
Of course, there’s the problem of succession. But all this talk of Jon as the rightful heir to the throne fails to to account for which house the throne technically belongs to. Right now, the throne belongs to the Lannisters, not the Targaryens. So if Cersei and Jaime died, Tyrion would be the only rightful heir to the current royal house’s seat of power.
It’s hard to say who the majority of the realm would support if it came down to deciding between the hated Lannisters or the mad Targaryens. But we know who has the savvy to convince them. And we know whose wedding the lords and ladies of Westeros already watched happen: Tyrion and Sansa.
Lastly, there’s Bran. Throughout Season 8 — namely during Sansa and Tyrion’s first reunion — Bran has sending intense, meaningful stares at Tyrion. And he’s acted oddly toward Sansa in the past. As the one character who knows the future, we have to wonder whether Bran’s fixation on them is another piece of setup like Arya’s Valyrian dagger turned out to be.
Regardless of whether Sansa and Tyrion actually take the Iron Throne in the end, though, it’s safe to say we know who wins the popular vote. All rise for King Tyrion and Queen Sansa, first of their name.
On Thursday, the price of Bitcoin went above $6,000 for the first time since November last year. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $6,102.64 according to CoinMarketCap.
The Binance hack — made worse by the company CEO Changpeng Zhao’s short-livedsuggestion to change Bitcoin’s history to undo the hack — wasn’t the only recent bad news for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. In April, news broke that China is considering banning cryptocurrency mining in the country. Later that month, cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and stablecoin Tether were accused by the New York Attorney General of covering up an $850 million loss of customer funds. Last week, famous investor Warren Buffett slammed Bitcoin for being useless, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz suggested cryptocurrencies should be “shut down.”
There was good news as well; in April, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase opened shop in several key markets, including Argentina, India, Indonesia and Mexico. And earlier this week, a report said investment giant Fidelity is looking to launch a crypto trading product.
But Bitcoin being Bitcoin, it largely ignored news and just kept pumping. It’s still a long way since its Dec. 2017 highs of nearly $20,000, but the recent price gains are reminiscent of 2017, when the price kept rising no matter what happened (right up until mid-December).
Other major cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum and XRP, have also experienced price growth in the last 24 hours, but the gains were much more modest. Ethereum rose 0.81% and is currently trading at $171.49, and XRP rose 0.28% to its current price of $0.300681.
Disclosure: The author of this text owns, or has recently owned, a number of cryptocurrencies, including BTC and ETH.
On the back of a damning UN report which painted a grim future for the planet’s species, Jimmy Kimmel decided to quiz strangers if they care about the extinction of homo sapiens — that’s humans, in plain English.
As is usually the case with Kimmel’s segments, most of those interviewed were unknowingly down for the bad thing, and boy, it’s cringeworthy to watch.
A family trip to Disney World came to a halt when a great-grandmother was arrested for carrying CBD oil, which her doctor recommended to ease her arthritis.
Hester Burkhalter, 69, was arrested on Apr. 15 and charged with felony possession of hashish. The Tampa Bay Timesreports that Burkhalter was stopped at a bag check just outside of Magic Kingdom that morning, and Disney security found her 1-ounce bottle of peppermint-flavored CBD tincture. In photos obtained by Orlando’s Fox 35, the bottle is labeled as 1000 mg of CBD and 0 mg of THC.
“I have really bad arthritis in my legs, in my arms and in my shoulder,” Burkhalter told Fox 35. “I use it for the pain because it helps.”
According to the arrest report, the security guard who spotted the CBD oil notified a nearby police officer, who tested the tincture. He said the tincture tested positive for THC and arrested Burkhalter. Although she was carrying the letter of recommendation for CBD oil from her doctor, CBD is illegal in the state of Florida. She spent 12 hours in jail and was released on a $2,000 bail. The charges were later dropped.
One, the December 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp nationwide, classifying it as an agricultural commodity instead of a federally controlled substance. Hemp products, like the CBD oil added to burgers and sold by the bottle in the wellness section of grocery stores like Whole Foods, must contain less than 0.3 percent THC to be legally sold. (THC is the main psychoactive compound in weed that makes you feel high. CBD doesn’t.)
But like the Miami Herald notes, hemp is still a no-no in Florida. Retailers sell CBD products, but a spokesman for the state’s Agriculture Commissioner stated that while the office hasn’t sent out any cease and desist letters, “the sale of CBD products is not currently legal in Florida until hemp legislation is passed.”
The police report, as seen in Fox 35’s video, shows the police officer used a presumptive test on Burkhalter’s CBD tincture. Presumptive tests can’t specify a substance, but indicate the possibility of its presence. In this case, the test turned red, which indicated that THC might have been present. While presumptive tests are cheaper and yield faster results, they can be inaccurate and give false positives. The FDA recommends using confirmatory testing, which is more costly and takes longer but can “obtain a confirmed analytical result” by identifying specific substances.
This also isn’t the first time that a marijuana test detected THC in supposedly “pure” CBD oil. THC-free CBD, or CBD isolate, can be made in a lab, but there’s little to no regulation when it comes to what CBD manufacturers put in their products or how they label them. An investigation by WTHR in Indiana, a state where it’s legal to buy, sell, and possess CBD products, found that a patient taking hemp-derived CBD oil tested positive for marijuana during his employer’s drug test. The station sent a sample of the oil he took in lieu of multiple migraine medications to a lab, which certified that the oil had 0.018 percent THC — well below the legal limit. And in Georgia, where medical marijuana patients can register to legally use “low THC oil” to treat a variety of ailments, a woman taking CBD oil for anxiety failed a drug screening for a new job. She told WSB-TV that the ingredient label on the oil showed no THC, but a disclaimer on the company’s website stated that full-spectrum oil could test positive on drug screenings. It’s unclear how a full-spectrum product would have no THC as that is made from the whole hemp plant, meaning that there will be some traces of THC.
In a statement to Fox News, the Sheriff’s Office said their handling of Burkhalter was “a lawful arrest.”
“Possession of CBD oil is currently a felony under Florida State Statute and Deputies are responsible for enforcing Florida law,” the statement continued. “Although CBD oil is illegal without a prescription, our top drug enforcement priority and focus at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office is to get deadly drugs, like heroin and fentanyl, off the streets of our community.”
For Burkhalter, though, the family trip to Disney World was ruined.
“We had planned on this trip for over two years and we saved up for it and we were real excited,” she told Fox 35. “I didn’t know what to think, I couldn’t understand it. I didn’t feel like I’d done nothing wrong.”
![The fighting has pushed 150,000 civilians from their homes, raising concerns of a new humanitarian crisis in northwest Syria [File: Ammar Abdullah/Reuters]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/5/9/a3a0a2b4fd7e40d5b3b2a2ccf508b01a_18.jpg "Syrian troops capture strategic town from rebels: Residents")
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