WhatsApp’s new version for iOS has gotten a simple but important upgrade: The app now supports Apple’s Face ID face recognition tech, as well as Touch ID fingerprint scanner.
The update has gone live in WhatsApp’s version 2.19.20 for iOS, which is available to all users now.
To turn the feature on, go to Settings > Account > Privacy and enable Screen Lock. When it’s on, you’ll need to use Touch ID or Face ID to unlock WhatsApp, though you’ll still be ably to reply to messages from notifications and answer calls, even when the app is locked. You’ll also be able to set whether you want the app to require Touch ID/Face ID immediately or after 1 minute, 15 minutes, and 1 hour.
Image: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
The feature is quite a big deal for WhatsApp, which touts end-to-end encryption and privacy/security in general as an important feature. Note, however, that both Touch ID and Face ID are less secure than using a good passphrase to protect your phone.
Notably, Mashable’s own Ray Wong recently got the ability to use Face ID with his iOS Instagram app; Instagram confirmed to us they’re testing the feature.
WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, made the news recently when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained his plan for merging it with the company’s other two major social apps, Messenger and Instagram. One of the advantages of that would be having end-to-end encryption across all of those products. However, Zuckerberg said the plans to merge these three apps are in a really early stage and that it may not happen until 2020.
Football season is sadly over, but there’s plenty to look forward to as the offseason ramps up. The NFL Scouting Combine is in less than a month and will feature a 2019 draft class that’s quietly better than expected, including a historic level of talent along the defensive line, intriguing options at cornerback and a ton of depth thanks to a strong senior class and the addition of 135 underclassmen.
Who are the names to know? Which areas will each team look to improve? You’ll get the answers in this full seven-round mock draft to kick off draft season.
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Joe Robbins/Getty Images
The Pick: Nick Bosa, EDGE, Ohio State
For now, the Arizona Cardinals are predicted to do the smart thing and select the best player in the 2019 draft class with the No. 1 overall pick. There are still three months remaining for them to mess this up, though.
Nick Bosa isn’t a generational talent—that phrase needs to be retired—but he’s a blue-chip prospect at the most important position in the NFL outside of quarterback. If the Cardinals are set on Josh Rosen as the future of the team, then Bosa is a no-brainer selection.
Bosa’s talent is unquestioned as a true edge-rusher. As long as he’s recovered from a sports hernia injury that ended his 2018 season in September, he will be a wire-to-wire No. 1 overall prospect on my board.
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Christian Petersen/Getty Images
The Pick: Quinnen Williams, DL, Alabama
With Nick Bosa gone, the San Francisco 49ers must seriously consider trading out of the No. 2 selection and allowing a quarterback-needy team to fly up the board for a passer. On the “Stick to Football” podcast, we talked about the Denver Broncos’ connection to Kyle Shanahan through John Elway and how that move might make sense as they target Missouri’s Drew Lock.
But in a mock draft without trades, the 49ers draft the best player remaining in this talented class.
Alabama’s Quinnen Williams is a natural 3-technique pass-rusher from the interior. While that may seem redundant with DeForest Buckner and Solomon Thomas on the roster as former top-10 picks, the team’s 4-3 under base defense would work well with Buckner at nose tackle and Thomas as a 5-technique.
With the entire NFL salivating at the idea of interior pressure this offseason, Williams is an ideal fit and a great value for the 49ers.
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The Pick: Josh Allen, EDGE, Kentucky
This is a prime location from which to execute a trade and let a quarterback-needy team (hello, Denver Broncos) move up. In a mock draft without trades, the Jets instead look to fill a huge need on the edge of Gregg Williams’ defense.
Josh Allen is a 6’5″, 260-pound high-level athlete who also produced to the tune of 17 sacks and 21.5 tackles for a loss in 2018. He dominated SEC competition with speed, length and power. He’s not only the top senior in the 2019 draft class, but he’s also one of the better edge prospects in the last five years.
The Jets could address this need in free agency, but in a mock draft before the combine and free agency, Allen is the best fit.
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The Pick: Rashan Gary, EDGE, Michigan
In this draft position, neither a trade nor the selection of Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray should be ruled out. The Raiders front office is brand new with general manager Mike Mayock running the show, and there is no telling if it is committed to Derek Carr. We’ll know after this draft, but anything is possible at the No. 4 pick.
Should the Raiders stay put and not go after an exciting young quarterback, addressing the edge of the defensive line is the best move they could make.
Michigan’s Rashan Gary lined up all over the field for the Wolverines, but with his athleticism on a 6’5″, 280-pound frame, it’s easy to imagine him settling in at defensive end in the Raiders’ scheme. He’s versatile enough to bump down to tackle but could also consider shedding 10 pounds and playing more as a true stand-up edge. The possibilities with his athleticism are limitless.
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Mitchell Layton/Getty Images
The Pick: Ed Oliver, DEF, Houston
What’s “DEF” mean? It means that Ed Oliver will play defense. Line him up where you see fit in your scheme and let him go.
There has been recent talk from scouts that Oliver doesn’t have the ideal size to play as an interior pass-rusher, but his quickness and elite athleticism make him a mismatch against guards and centers. He’s also shown the flexibility to bump outside and play defensive end. And as our friend Lance Zierlein of NFL Network pointed out, some teams could look at Oliver as a linebacker.
Defensive coordinator Todd Bowles will know how to best use Oliver to get the most production and impact out of his tools.
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The Pick: Dwayne Haskins, QB, Ohio State
The New York Giants have to eventually move on from Eli Manning—or at least draft a viable young quarterback to take over in the near future. The NFL is buzzing right now about the result of the Kansas City Chiefs’ plan to draft Patrick Mahomes and let him sit behind Alex Smith for a season. The Giants should follow that blueprint and strike now to get a quarterback of the future.
Dwayne Haskins might not be a trendy fit for the Giants because of his status as a one-year starter at Ohio State, but his talent speaks for itself. He has poise in the pocket that most new starters do not and has shown excellent arm talent and ball placement. Perhaps most encouraging was his development throughout the season, as he played his best football late in the year.
The Giants can’t afford to pass on quarterbacks again in 2019; no matter how good the 2020 class looks, now is the time to get a quarterback to groom for the future.
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The Pick: Kyler Murray, QB, Oklahoma
The Jacksonville Jaguars tried building a team around Blake Bortles, and they did OK for one season. But when he was forced to carry the team even a little, we saw the return of the old Bortles. The Jaguars are now in a reloading mode while keeping an eye on the culture in the locker room and looking for leadership.
The best move the team can make is to identify and draft a starting quarterback early in the first round. That is, of course, easier said than done. The player that NFL scouts continue to be the most excited about is Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray. He isn’t a sure thing, but the buzz surrounding him is unlike anything I’ve heard in a long time.
Murray will be questioned for size (he’s estimated to be 5’10” and around 180 pounds) and the fact that he was a one-year starter at Oklahoma, but his athleticism and ability to make plays from inside and outside the pocket are leading scouts to compare him to Russell Wilson. The Jaguars can’t afford to pass on the next Russell Wilson at No. 7 overall.
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The Pick: Clelin Ferrell, EDGE, Clemson
The Detroit Lions have a problem at edge-rusher with Ziggy Ansah—who, despite being unproductive and injured in 2018, was their most talented pass-rusher—entering free agency. They must look to the loaded class of 2019 pass-rushers with an eye on making an immediate upgrade.
Clemson’s Clelin Ferrell is unlikely to test in the range of Josh Allen or Nick Bosa from a purely athletic standpoint, but he comes into the draft as one of the most NFL-ready pass-rushers in the group. He’s long, physical and has a motor that runs hot every down. He’s also technically savvy and was the best pass-rusher on a dominant Clemson front four.
Ferrell, whether he’s a traditional defensive end or a stand-up outside linebacker, has the goods to give Matt Patricia’s defense some juice off the edge.
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Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
The Pick: Jonah Williams, OL, Alabama
Jonah Williams has been the best offensive tackle in college football for two seasons—each of which he played on the left side of the Crimson Tide line after moving from his right tackle position he nailed down as a true freshman. Williams’ tape is nearly flawless. But he has short arms.
Williams has already been called a guard or center prospect by scouts this offseason, and it’s likely he’ll follow in the footsteps of Zack Martin, Brandon Scherff or Cody Whitehair as a good college tackle kicked inside because of an arm that’s one inch too short.
That’s good news for the Bills. They can plug Williams in at guard and have an All-Pro-caliber player there. They could also experiment with him at tackle and let him figure it out on the job while moving Dion Dawkins to right tackle.
However it works, the Bills must focus on helping quarterback Josh Allen.
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Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
The Pick: Drew Lock, QB, Missouri
The pick with the most buzz around the NFL throughout the Senior Bowl was Drew Lock to the Denver Broncos.
Lock has the right traits to excite a Hall of Fame quarterback turned team president. He’s 6’3″ with good athleticism, a strong right arm and excellent ability to make throws off-platform and on the move. While some might see a poor man’s Patrick Mahomes, he’s not that refined in his playmaking or as loose and confident on the field. Still, there’s enough here to get Elway excited after he swung and missed on Brock Osweiler and Paxton Lynch.
Of the quarterbacks selected in the top 10 of this mock, Lock has the most experience and is the most likely to be ready to start immediately.
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Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
The Pick: Devin White, LB, LSU
Los Angeles Rams quarterbacks coach Zac Taylor is expected to become Cincinnati’s new head coach after the Super Bowl, which makes it seem likely the front office is intent on keeping Andy Dalton. Taylor will be tasked with bolstering Dalton’s game while giving the offense a boost and getting the most of of Joe Mixon and Tyler Boyd.
That leaves the biggest need for Cincinnati on defense.
Speed is a huge need at the linebacker position, even with Malik Jefferson coming back from an injury in 2019 and figuring to be an impact player at one spot. Devin White would give the Bengals not just speed but instincts, toughness and playmaking skills at middle linebacker. The former prep running back has worked himself into one of the best linebackers college football has seen since Myles Jack and Jaylon Smith were running down plays.
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Joe Robbins/Getty Images
The Pick: Brian Burns, EDGE, Florida State
With two selections in the first round, the Green Bay Packers can make major changes to a roster that has talent at key positions (quarterback, left tackle, cornerback) but needs a stronger support system. The one blue-chip position that’s missing is an outside pass-rusher.
Brian Burns has elite quickness off the edge but will be questioned about a lean 6’5″, 245-pound frame. He will have to bulk up to handle NFL offensive tackles, but he has the tools to win with speed and flexibility. Much like the player the Saints traded with the Packers for last year, Marcus Davenport, Burns is more of a project who does have enough attributes to get on the field immediately.
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Joe Robbins/Getty Images
The Pick: Montez Sweat, EDGE, Mississippi State
Montez Sweat was one of the most impressive players at the 2019 Reese’s Senior Bowl, showing off speed and power from the edge that could make him a top-10 pick in the upcoming draft.
There’s also the off-field side to his story: Sweat left Michigan State as a sophomore after dealing with disciplinary issues. A stellar week at the Senior Bowl where he dominated practices can help remove any doubt about his mindset.
For Sweat, the predraft process is huge. He has obvious on-field talents that would make him a priority draft pick at a key position, but he has to nail his interviews and workouts to prove to teams that he’s dialed in mentally.
The Dolphins can afford to take a small risk on Sweat given his athleticism, their need for a pass-rusher and the addition of Brian Flores as head coach. If Flores and his staff can connect with Sweat, he has the tools to be a double-digit sack artist immediately.
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The Pick: Jeffery Simmons, DL, Mississippi State
Tom Pelissero of NFL Network reported Thursday that Jeffery Simmons would not be allowed to attend the 2019 NFL Scouting Combine. Simmons pleaded no-contest to a simple assault charge and was found guilty of malicious mischief in 2016. He was caught on video striking a woman after breaking up a fight involving his sister. Simmons will have to work to assure teams that he’s learned from his mistakes, and sources at Mississippi State say that he has not been in any trouble during his three years there.
The Falcons have traditionally stayed away from players with questions in their background, but they might make an exception for Simmons. He’s a powerful interior pass-rusher who perfectly fits what the team does upfront. Especially with Grady Jarrett set to hit free agency, Simmons could prove too good to pass on at No. 14 overall.
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The Pick: Daniel Jones, QB, Duke
Washington may be without quarterback Alex Smith for the 2019 season, which might end his NFL career given that he’s already 34 years old. The time to replace Smith is now with Daniel Jones on the board.
A three-year starter at Duke, Jones has been coached by an excellent quarterback developer in David Cutcliffe. Among the quarterbacks in this class, he’s the most pro-ready, and he has ideal pro traits in size and mechanics.
The Senior Bowl game MVP, Jones had an inconsistent week of practice, but NFL scouts maintain he could be the top quarterback in the 2019 class. As Washington rebuilds again, Jones could be the building block Jay Gruden needs.
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Butch Dill/Associated Press
The Pick: Andre Dillard, OT, Washington State
The Carolina Panthers might be without quarterback Cam Newton in 2019 due to injury, but no matter who is dropping back to throw passes, the front office must invest in fixing the outside of the offensive line. Unsurprisingly, Matt Kalil was average as as stopgap left tackle and must be upgraded. With Andre Dillard on the board, the Panthers have an easy decision to make.
Dillard is a smooth-moving athlete at left tackle with the size and length (6’5″, 310 lbs, 34″ arms) to easily handle a transition to the NFL from Washington State’s offense. He’s shown throughout his Cougars career the technique and quickness teams want on the edge. For the Panthers, he’s an immediate upgrade at left tackle and a long-term building block on the line.
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Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press
The Pick: Yodny Cajuste, OT, West Virginia
A run on offensive tackles continues as Yodny Cajuste goes to Cleveland as the team’s new left tackle.
The Browns limped by with Greg Robinson as a Band-Aid at the position after Joe Thomas retired last offseason; and while Robinson did solid work, he’s not the team’s answer for the future.
Cajuste is a top-tier athlete at left tackle, showing excellent footwork combined with good length and strength to handle power and speed rushers. He’s a bit raw in the run game but has the traits to be fine there with some coaching by a pro staff.
Finding a long-term answer at left tackle with the No. 17 overall pick is rare, which is why the Browns would jump all over Cajuste if available here.
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Paul Sancya/Associated Press
The Pick: Devin Bush, LB, Michigan
An offensive lineman might be the biggest need for the Minnesota Vikings, but with Devin Bush on the board and Anthony Barr set to become a free agent, it makes sense to load up on a rangy, athletic linebacker when available.
Bush has developed into a force at linebacker since being a top high school recruit three seasons ago. He might not have great height at a listed 5’11”, but his 240-pound frame is stout. Paired with his excellent athleticism and instincts, Bush has all the tools to be an impressive rookie starter as a three-down impact player.
The NFL is trending toward linebackers who can rush, cover and blitz; Bush does all of those well.
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Alonzo Adams/Associated Press
The Pick: Marquise Brown, WR, Oklahoma
The top-ranked receiver in the 2019 draft class lasts until pick No. 19, which might be too good to be true by late April.
Marquise Brown has serious juice in his game; he has excellent playmaking skills after the catch and terrific separation throughout his routes. With many NFL teams wanting the next Antonio Brown or Tyreek Hill, scouts will fall in love with speed receivers. Teams with a need for an offensive boost will fall in love with with Marquise Brown’s game and traits.
The only real concern is a foot injury that slowed him down in the College Football Playoff, but his 2018 tape was good enough to potentially push him into the top 10 picks of the draft.
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Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
The Pick: Greedy Williams, CB, LSU
The first cornerback comes off the board at No. 20 overall, which might seem impossible, but the group of corners in this year’s class is not particularly strong at the top. Each of the cornerbacks being considered in Round 1 comes with concerns, which is why Greedy Williams is available here.
A 6’3″ cover man with excellent length, Williams has to prove at the NFL Scouting Combine that he can run with pro receivers. If he can do that, he’ll be off the board way earlier than this.
The Steelers seem to have missed on Artie Burns in 2016 and still have a need for a starting outside cornerback. Williams’ size, instincts and ball skills are exactly what the team must add as it transitions in the secondary.
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The Pick: Jachai Polite, EDGE, Florida
Frank Clark’s impending free agency creates a need at the EDGE position, but even if Clark returns to Seattle, the front office has to focus on getting younger on defense with linebacker Bobby Wagner set as the foundation they’ll build around.
Jachai Polite is built like Melvin Ingram at around 6’2″ and 245 pounds, but he has excellent length that allows him to long-arm offensive tackles and bend around the edge. He’s quick, powerful and instinctive as a pass-rusher.
With or without Clark, the Seahawks have to get back to being a dominant pass-rushing team. Polite’s ability to play immediately while offering potential for the future makes him very appealing here.
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Wesley Hitt/Getty Images
The Pick: D.K. Metcalf, WR, Ole Miss
Before suffering a neck injury in October, D.K. Metcalf was looking like one of the top wide receivers in the 2019 class. Now that he’s been cleared by doctors, he’s back with a Round 1 grade on my board. That’s great news for the wide receiver-needy Baltimore Ravens.
One of the keys to helping a quarterback without great accuracy is to give him speed to stretch the field vertically or size with an extended catch radius. Metcalf (6’4″, 230 lbs) will give Lamar Jackson that big, long target he needs on the outside to haul in passes that might not hit the mark.
As long as Metcalf’s medicals go well at the combine, he’s looking like a first-round lock.
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Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
The Pick: Cody Ford, OL, Oklahoma
Protecting Deshaun Watson has to be the priority this offseason. It might take more than just one draft pick too.
Oklahoma’s Cody Ford lines up at right tackle but has received grades as both a tackle and guard by NFL teams. He’s powerful, physical and showed a poise and patience that is rare from spread-offense blockers. He’s mean enough to get upfield in the run game and also has the athleticism to protect a mobile quarterback in Kyler Murray.
The Texans cannot overthink this one. Bill O’Brien and the front office have to sell out this offseason and add bodies to protect their franchise QB.
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Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
The Pick: Josh Jacobs, RB, Alabama
A top-five player in the 2019 draft class on my board, Josh Jacobs falls because of positional value only. A smart team would see him slide down the board and quickly scoop him up.
The Raiders would be ecstatic to land a featured running back with three-down skills and almost no wear and tear at this spot in the draft. One high-level NFL scout told me his team has Jacobs graded higher than Leonard Fournette. He’s that well-liked as a power runner and receiver out of the backfield.
If the Raiders are indeed sticking with Derek Carr at quarterback, the best move they can make is to draft help behind him.
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The Pick: Byron Murphy, CB, Washington
The Philadelphia Eagles have a solid secondary but could use help at the cornerback position, especially in the slot. Washington’s Byron Murphy is feisty, technically smooth and has shown excellent ball skills.
So why is he on the board here? Teams could knock him for his lack of bulk on a 5’11” frame.
Murphy has been electric the last two seasons at Washington, oftentimes showing up the teammates around him from previous draft classes. The Eagles could quickly fall in love with his playmaking skills and ability to close on the ball with special quickness and physicality.
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Elise Amendola/Associated Press
The Pick: Christian Wilkins, DL, Clemson
Christian Wilkins started the season with a second-round grade on my board, but the more Clemson tape that’s evaluated, the more it’s clear he has a role as an interior pass-rusher and excellent leader in the NFL. His athleticism, production and character add up to a first-round grade.
For the Indianapolis Colts, he’s exactly the type of player they’ve shown a want for. Wilkins is no-nonsense, all about ball and works his tail off on and off the field. He’s also a disruptor from the middle of the defensive line and can bring pressure up the middle to collapse pockets and flush quarterbacks.
The Colts have other needs that could be addressed here—like edge-rusher or wide receiver—but with two selections in the second round, it makes the most sense to grab a potential building block on defense while they can.
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David J. Phillip/Associated Press
The Pick: Trayvon Mullen, CB, Clemson
After fixing holes at running back and pass-rusher with their first two selections, the Oakland Raiders come back around with another pick in Round 1 with an eye on cornerbacks.
Trayvon Mullen is one of my favorites in this group. He’s long and aggressive at the point of attack. In the national championship game, he showed the ball skills and all-around instincts you want from a No. 1 cornerback.
There are questions about his long speed and ability to carry receivers in-phase, but I see a technically smart corner with coverage chops and traits to improve.
The Raiders need hits on every pick in the first round to rebuild the poor roster there, especially defensively. If Mullen can come in and start opposite Gareon Conley, this team looks much better from Day 1.
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John Raoux/Associated Press
The Pick: Jawaan Taylor, OT, Florida
Offensive tackles have a way of going earlier than we expect in the real NFL draft, and that’s the case with Florida’s Jawaan Taylor. He could easily be a top-15 selection, but finding a fit for him early in this mock draft was impossible with four quarterbacks in the top 15 and a load of defensive linemen in that same range.
The Los Angeles Chargers will take it.
Taylor is a powerful right tackle with a body type that most scouts believe will keep him on the right side or at guard because of his size (6’5″, 328 lbs) and power. For the Chargers, he would pencil in as a Day 1 upgrade at right tackle and someone to fuel the power run game and keep Philip Rivers clean as he nears the final leg of his career.
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Sean Rayford/Associated Press
The Pick: Deandre Baker, CB, Georgia
Defense. Defense. Defense.
General manager Brett Veach and head coach Andy Reid should have one thing on their minds this offseason.
The Chiefs have an offense that can score on anyone but a defense that allows too many leads to disappear. Scoring 40 points should ensure a victory, but for the Chiefs in 2018, it didn’t. That’s why Veach and Co. must identify starting-caliber defenders and load up with their three picks in the first two rounds.
Georgia cornerback Deandre Baker is a dream fit in new defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s scheme. He’s physical at the line of scrimmage, a willing tackler in the run game, and has the size and enough speed to handle receivers in man or zone coverage.
He might not run a low 4.4 at the combine, but Baker makes up for it with his length and awareness.
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Ralph Freso/Associated Press
The Pick: N’Keal Harry, WR, Arizona State
After securing an edge-rusher with the first pick in the round, the Green Bay Packers can relax and focus on finding Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams help on offense. A true secondary target in the passing game would take Rodgers and the offense back to their days of domination.
New head coach Matt LaFleur won’t want to settle for using the pieces already on the roster. The scheme he’s bringing to Titletown needs playmakers, and the Packers lack them. Adding a 6’4″, 215-pound receiver with yards-after-catch ability will open up the scheme and give Rodgers a red-zone target he so badly needs.
N’Keal Harry could get knocked in the draft process for a lack of speed in his 40 time, but he’s quick and elusive with the ball in his hands while showing this draft class’ best catch radius and sticky hands.
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Eugene Tanner/Associated Press
The Pick: Jaylon Ferguson, EDGE, Louisiana Tech
What does the future hold for the Los Angeles Rams defense? There are major questions with free agency coming up for Dante Fowler Jr. and Ndamukong Suh on the defensive line. Les Snead and Sean McVay need another great offseason after loading up for a Super Bowl run through high-priced trades and free agency.
Jaylon Ferguson, aka Sack Daddy, is a natural replacement for Fowler as a defensive end who can play standing up or with his hand down. His production in college—45 sacks—shows that he’s ready to play, and his week at the Senior Bowl showed he’s good enough to produce against NFL-caliber blockers.
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Matthew Holst/Getty Images
The Pick: T.J. Hockenson, TE, Iowa
As Rob Gronkowski nears the end to his Hall of Fame career, the New England Patriots have to think about his replacement. With a deep tight end class in front of them, the Patriots select a player similar to Gronk in Iowa’s T.J. Hockenson.
A talented blocker and receiver, Hockenson can play Gronk’s role as a do-it-all tight end. Part of what makes Gronkowskiso valuable in New England is his ability as a blocker and receiver. Hockenson isn’t at his level but has many of the same traits and could fit seamlessly into the Patriots offense.
A quarterback of the future is a need for New England, but with two picks in the second round, there’s a chance to find a passer there at a better value.
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Noah Fant has all the tools to be a top TE at the next level.Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press
33. Arizona Cardinals: Noah Fant, TE, Iowa
34. Indianapolis Colts: Hakeem Butler, WR, Iowa State35. Oakland Raiders: Deionte Thompson, S, Alabama36. San Francisco 49ers: Oshane Ximines, EDGE, Old Dominion37. New York Giants: Greg Little, OT, Ole Miss38. Jacksonville Jaguars: Parris Campbell, WR, Ohio State39. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Dalton Risner, OT, Kansas State40. Buffalo Bills: A.J. Brown, WR, Ole Miss41. Denver Broncos: Rock Ya-Sin, CB, Temple42. Cincinnati Bengals: Irv Smith Jr., TE, Alabama43. Detroit Lions: Mecole Hardman, WR, Georgia44. Green Bay Packers: Mack Wilson, LB, Alabama45. Atlanta Falcons: Joe Jackson, EDGE, Miami46. Washington: Deebo Samuel, WR, South Carolina47. Carolina Panthers: Taylor Rapp, S, Washington48. Miami Dolphins: Jarrett Stidham, QB, Auburn49. Cleveland Browns: Riley Ridley, WR, Georgia50. Minnesota Vikings: Jerry Tillery, DL, Notre Dame51. Tennessee Titans: Chase Winovich, EDGE, Michigan52. Pittsburgh Steelers: Nasir Adderley, S, Delaware53. Philadelphia Eagles: Tytus Howard, OT, Alabama State54. Houston Texans: Julian Love, CB, Notre Dame55. Houston Texans: Kelvin Harmon, WR, NC State56. New England Patriots: Johnathan Abram, S, Mississippi State57. Philadelphia Eagles: Dre’Mont Jones, DL, Ohio State58. Dallas Cowboys: Elgton Jenkins, OC, Mississippi State59. Indianapolis Colts: Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, S, Florida60. Los Angeles Chargers: Dexter Lawrence, DL, Clemson61. Kansas City Chiefs: David Montgomery, RB, Iowa State62. New Orleans Saints: Lonnie Johnson, CB, Kentucky63. Kansas City Chiefs: Garrett Bradbury, OC, NC State 64. New England Patriots: David Edwards, OT, Wisconsin
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Will Grier will try to make a name for himself as a sleeper QB prospect.Brody Schmidt/Associated Press
65. Arizona Cardinals: Anthony Johnson, WR, Buffalo
66. Oakland Raiders: Tre Lamar, LB, Clemson67. San Francisco 49ers: JJ Arcega-Whiteside, WR, Stanford68. New York Jets: Amani Oruwariye, CB, Penn State69. Jacksonville Jaguars: Charles Omenihu, EDGE, Texas70. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Will Grier, QB, West VirginiaNew York Giants’ selection forfeited during the 2018 supplemental draft.71. Denver Broncos: Vosean Joseph, LB, Florida72. Cincinnati Bengals: Juan Thornhill, S, Virginia73. New England Patriots: Clayton Thorson, QB, Northwestern74. Buffalo Bills: Damien Harris, RB, Alabama75. Green Bay Packers: Connor McGovern, OG, Penn State76. Washington: Dakota Allen, LB, Texas Tech77. Carolina Panthers: Kaden Smith, TE, Stanford78. Miami Dolphins: Gerald Willis III, DL, Miami79. Atlanta Falcons: Michael Jordan, OG, Ohio State80. Cleveland Browns: Kendall Sheffield, CB, Ohio State81. Minnesota Vikings: Bobby Evans, OT, Oklahoma82. Tennessee Titans: Germaine Pratt, LB, NC State83. Pittsburgh Steelers: T.J. Edwards, LB, Wisconsin84. Seattle Seahawks: Max Scharping, OT, Northern Illinois85. Baltimore Ravens: Devin Singletary, RB, FAU86. Houston Texans: Ben Banogu, EDGE, TCU87. Chicago Bears: Sean Bunting, CB, Central Michigan88. Detroit Lions: Caleb Wilson, TE, UCLA89. Indianapolis Colts: D’Andre Walker, EDGE, Georgia90. Dallas Cowboys: Jakobi Meyers, WR, NC State91. Los Angeles Chargers: Jimmy Moreland, CB, James Madison92. Kansas City Chiefs: Zach Allen, DL, Boston College93. New York Jets: Darrell Henderson, RB, Memphis94. Jacksonville Jaguars: Joejuan Williams, CB, Vanderbilt95. Cleveland Browns: Terrill Hanks, LB, New Mexico State
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Kris Boyd could make a good Bills defense even better.Eric Gay/Associated Press
96. Arizona Cardinals: Michael Deiter, OG, Wisconsin
97. San Francisco 49ers: Amani Hooker, S, Iowa98. New York Jets: Dennis Daley, OT, South Carolina99. Oakland Raiders: David Sills V, WR, West Virginia100. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Mike Weber, RB, Ohio State101. New York Giants: Gary Johnson, LB, Texas102. Jacksonville Jaguars: Miles Sanders, RB, Penn State103. Cincinnati Bengals: Terry Beckner Jr., DL, Missouri104. Detroit Lions: Saivion Smith, CB, Alabama105. Buffalo Bills: Kris Boyd, CB, Texas106. Denver Broncos: Shareef Miller, EDGE, Penn State107. Green Bay Packers: Isaac Nauta, TE, Georgia108. Carolina Panthers: Darius Slayton, WR, Auburn109. Miami Dolphins: David Long, CB, Michigan110. Atlanta Falcons: Dillon Mitchell, WR, Oregon111. Green Bay Packers: Jaquan Johnson, S, Miami112. Cleveland Browns: Isaiah Buggs, DL, Alabama113. Minnesota Vikings: Dexter Williams, RB, Notre Dame114. Tennessee Titans: Mike Edwards, S, Kentucky115. Pittsburgh Steelers: Andy Isabella, WR, UMass116. Baltimore Ravens: Beau Benzschawel, OG, Wisconsin117. Seattle Seahawks: Darnell Savage Jr., S, Maryland118. Denver Broncos: Isaiah Prince, OL, Ohio State119. Chicago Bears: Benny Snell Jr., RB, Kentucky120. Philadelphia Eagles: Elijah Holyfield, RB, Georgia121. Dallas Cowboys: Zach Gentry, TE, Michigan122. Indianapolis Colts: David Long Jr., LB, West Virginia123. Los Angeles Chargers: Sione Takitaki, LB, BYU124. Buffalo Bills: Lil’Jordan Humphrey, WR, Texas125. New York Giants: Austin Bryant, EDGE, Clemson126. Los Angeles Rams- Ed Alexander, DL, LSU127. New England Patriots: Terry McLaurin, WR, Ohio State
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Could Antoine Wesley be the WR the New York Jets have been looking for?Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press
Because compensatory selections will be announced at a later date, we’ve eschewed pick numbers for the remaining rounds. The selection order is based on the draft order.
Arizona Cardinals: Anthony Nelson, DL, Iowa New York Jets: Antoine Wesley, WR, Texas Tech Oakland Raiders: Gardner Minshew, QB, Washington State New York Giants: Iman Marshall, S, USC New York Giants: Ross Pierschbacher, OC, Alabama Cleveland Browns: Chris Lindstrom, OG, Boston College Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Jalen Jelks, EDGE, Oregon Detroit Lions: Christian Miller, EDGE, Alabama Buffalo Bills: C.J. Conrad, TE, Kentucky Denver Broncos: Khalen Saunders, DL, Western Illinois Cincinnati Bengals: Nate Herbig, OG, Stanford Green Bay Packers: Michael Dogbe, DL, Temple Miami Dolphins: Trayveon Williams, RB, Texas A&M Atlanta Falcons: Dru Samia, OG, Oklahoma Washington: Jace Sternberger, TE, Texas A&M Carolina Panthers: Jamal Peters, CB, Mississippi State Cleveland Browns: Marvel Tell III, S, USC Denver Broncos: Saquan Hampton, S, Rutgers Tennessee Titans: Michael Jackson, CB, Miami Buffalo Bills: Lamont Gaillard, OC, Georgia Seattle Seahawks: Chase Hansen, LB, Utah Baltimore Ravens: Cameron Smith, LB, USC Houston Texans: Rodney Anderson, RB, Oklahoma Chicago Bears: Jalen Hurd, WR, Baylor Philadelphia Eagles: Joe Giles-Harris, LB, Duke Indianapolis Colts: Blessuan Austin, CB, Rutgers Dallas Cowboys: Mark McLaurin, S, Mississippi State Los Angeles Chargers: Lukas Denis, S, Boston College Kansas City Chiefs: Carl Granderson, EDGE, Wyoming New Orleans Saints: Tyre Brady, WR, Marshall Los Angeles Rams: Erik McCoy, OC, Texas A&M Cleveland Browns: Porter Gustin, EDGE, USC
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Ryan Finley could surprise folks at the next level.Chris Seward/Associated Press
Because compensatory selections will be announced at a later date, we’ve eschewed pick numbers for the remaining rounds. The selection order is based on the draft order.
Arizona Cardinals: Kaleb McGary, OT, Washington Pittsburgh Steelers: Karan Higdon, RB, Michigan San Francisco 49ers: Bruce Anderson, RB, NDSU New Orleans Saints: Ryan Finley, QB, NC State Jacksonville Jaguars: Chuma Edoga, OT, USC Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Sutton Smith, EDGE, Northern Illinois New York Giants: Daylon Mack, DL, Texas A&M Buffalo Bills: Marquise Copeland, DL, Cincinnati Denver Broncos: Josh Oliver, TE, San Jose State Cincinnati Bengals: Olisaemeka Udoh, OT, Elon Detroit Lions: Ben Powers, OG, Oklahoma Green Bay Packers: Hamp Cheevers, CB, Boston College Atlanta Falcons: Mark Fields, CB, Clemson Washington’s selection forfeited during the 2018 supplemental draft. Carolina Panthers: Tyree Jackson, QB, Buffalo Miami Dolphins: Preston Williams, WR, Colorado State Cleveland Browns: KeeSean Johnson, WR, Fresno State Minnesota Vikings: Jonathan Ledbetter, DL, Georgia Baltimore Ravens: Jordan Brailford, EDGE, Oklahoma State Pittsburgh Steelers: Drew Sample, TE, Washington Baltimore Ravens: Blace Brown, CB, Troy Green Bay Packers: Damarea Crockett, RB, Missouri Houston Texans: Ryan Connelly, LB, Wisconsin Oakland Raiders: Kendall Joseph, LB, Clemson Philadelphia Eagles: Felton Davis III, WR, Michigan State Dallas Cowboys: Myles Gaskin, RB, Washington Indianapolis Colts: Justin Hollins, EDGE, Oregon Los Angeles Chargers: Brett Rypien, QB, Boise State Kansas City Chiefs: Marquise Blair, S, Utah New Orleans Saints: Dax Raymond, TE, Utah State Los Angeles Rams: Renell Wren, DL, Arizona State Detroit Lions: Jalin Moore, RB, Appalachian State
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Bryce Love could be a Round 7 gem.Tony Avelar/Associated Press
Because compensatory selections will be announced at a later date, we’ve eschewed pick numbers for the remaining rounds. The selection order is based on the draft order.
Arizona Cardinals: Penny Hart, WR, Georgia State San Francisco 49ers: Gerri Green, LB, Mississippi State New York Jets: Demarcus Christmas, DL, FSU Oakland Raiders: Keelan Doss, WR, UC-Davis Pittsburgh Steelers: Nate Davis, OG, UNC-Charlotte New York Giants: Mitch Hyatt, OT, Clemson Jacksonville Jaguars: Corey Ballentine, CB, Washburn Denver Broncos: Anthony Ratliff-Williams, WR, North Carolina Cincinnati Bengals: Sheldrick Redwine, CB, Miami Detroit Lions: Diontae Johnson, WR, Toledo Buffalo Bills: Will Harris, S, Boston College Green Bay Packers: Emanuel Hall, WR, Missouri Washington: Mark Gilbert, CB, Duke Buffalo Bills: Deshaun Davis, LB, Auburn Miami Dolphins: Keegan Render, OC, Iowa Atlanta Falcons: Alex Barnes, RB, Kansas State Cleveland Browns: Cece Jefferson, EDGE, Florida New York Giants: Jaylen Smith, WR, Louisville Tennessee Titans: Amani Bledsoe, DL, Oklahoma Detroit Lions: Drue Tranquill, LB, Notre Dame Oakland Raiders: Bryce Love, RB, Stanford Cleveland Browns: Donald Parham, TE, Stetson Denver Broncos: Chris Nelson, DL, Texas Chicago Bears: John Cominsky, DL, Charleston Philadelphia Eagles: Foster Moreau, TE, LSU Indianapolis Colts: Ryan Bates, OG, Penn State Dallas Cowboys: Armon Watts, DL, Arkansas Los Angeles Chargers: Greg Dortch, WR, Wake Forest Kansas City Chiefs: Paul Adams, OT, Missouri New Orleans Saints: Andrew Beck, TE, Texas
Denver Broncos: Trey Pipkins, OT, Sioux FallsNew England Patriots: Tony Pollard, WR, Memphis
There’s something unintentionally hilarious about James Blake’s new visual for “Mile High” that features Travis Scott. Depending on how you look at it, the video is either the world’s greatest advertisement for fresh coffee or a primer on how to look dumbstruck when someone’s talking to you and you’re not listening. You have to see it for yourself below.
The scene opens up with the sexiest coffee preparation that you’ll ever see. Blake makes himself comfy with a cup of joe at a local shop (that isn’t Starbucks) when Scott comes in excited, eager to tell the singer about his life. The enthusiasm in his eyes and frantic movements aren’t matched by Blake whose only focus is perfecting this amazingly brown fixture. It looks like it’s pretty early in the morning, so can we honestly blame him?
As Blake stirs the cup, the camera becomes immersed in the swirling vortex inside of it where the two artists then perform the sullen track produced by Metro Boomin. Whisps of coffee smoke sway around them until the ending when the camera zooms back out revealing a surprise; we’ve been watching the video from Blake’s perspective, not the cup’s. It’s revealed that he hasn’t heard a word that Scott has said. He’s gazing off into the distance like we all do when we don’t really feel like talking.
Blake may not have been listening to Scott, but yesterday the world did when the rapper performed “Sicko Mode” at the Super Bowl LIII Halftime Show alongside Maroon 5 and Big Boi. Flying meteors and SpongeBob Squarepants, of all people, made an appearance. You can’t make something like this up.
“Mile High” appears on Blake’s fourth studio album Assume Form that dropped last month. You’ll be to catch a live performance of the record when Blake embarks on a North American tour in support of the album in a few weeks, with the trek kicking off on February 18 in Atlanta. If you go, just make sure you aren’t staring at Blake on stage with glassed-over eyes.
American comedian and Catastrophe starRob Delaney celebrated his 17-year sobriety milestone with a moving statement about grief and the “brutal” year his family has had.
Delaney, who lost his two-year-old son Henry in 2018, has spoken publicly about coping with loss and grief.
Having struggled for many years with alcoholism, Delaney writes in a post shared to Instagram and Twitter that he’s “grateful” for his sobriety.
“Sobriety allowed me to be a reasonably good dad, husband and worker through it all,” Delaney writes. “Sobriety allows me to grieve fully, and grief is an expression of love.”
Delaney adds that had he not been sober, the grieving process would have been “far worse.”
Delaney has previously explained on Twitter that the reason he has chosen to speak publicly the loss of his son is “de-stigmatise grief.”
I speak publicly about Henry in an effort to destigmatize grief. My family is sad & in pain because our beautiful 2 yr old boy died after a long illness. Why wouldn’t we be sad? Why wouldn’t we be angry and confused?
Easily slips on and off iPhone • Keeps iPhone charged up all day • Supports wireless charging • Better-looking than original
No on/off switch to control charging • Slow charging without the proper power adapter • Silicone exterior picks up dirt very easily (especially the white version)
Apple’s official iPhone Smart Battery Cases for iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR are no-nonsense battery cases that double their battery life.
I hear it time and again from friends, family, and strangers alike: “The iPhone is more than powerful enough, the cameras nail the shots, and it’s plenty thin, but I want more battery life.”
But let me just be that tech guy and remind everyone that there will never be an iPhone with enough battery. Even when Apple adds more battery life — the iPhone XS, XS Max and especially the iPhone XR have the longest-lasting batteries in any iPhone to date — you will always want more.
But if you are a battery-guzzling fiend — maybe your iPhone is glued to your hand, or you hate charging up every night, or you’re somewhere so remote there’s no outlets — your battery case options for Apple’s latest iPhones are kinda limited.
I’ve always recommended Mophie’s iPhone battery cases because the company has a proven track record of making reliable and safe battery cases. But its own Juice Pack Access cases for the new iPhones aren’t available (yet). They’re slated for a release sometime in the first quarter of 2019.
Without much selection to choose from, Apple’s own Smart Battery Case for the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR are the best options for pretty much everyone.
Still simple, but now less ugly
The family’s all here.
Image: ZLATA IVELEVA/MASHABLE
When Apple released its first Smart Battery Case for the iPhone 6 and 6S, everyone seemed to have an opinion. Most of them were not favorable with pretty much everyone agreeing how ugly it was.
How could Apple release such a hideous accessory with such a distinct battery “hump”? Some critics even went as far as to blame the hump for an 18 percent stock price drop at the time.
The consensus on the original Smart Battery Case was that Apple had lost its way — lowered its design bar to a level Steve Jobs would’ve never allowed.
Controversial design aside, the Smart Battery Case itself (and the subsequent iPhone 7 version) is actually quite practical. It lacks some of the bells and whistles found on other battery cases such as ones from Mophie, but its slim design, grippy silicone exterior, and no-nonsense charging and power management within iOS, meant it really just worked.
The new Smart Battery Cases for iPhone XS, XS Max and XR are similarly minimalist and simple to use, but come with a few tweaks that I think make them better than their predecessors.
All of the new Smart Battery Cases (left to right: iPhone XR, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XS) cost $129.
Image: ZLATA IVELEVA/MASHABLE
First, the stuff that’s the same: The new battery cases are still made of the same grippy silicone as the old ones. It’s also just as easy to slip your iPhone into the battery cases — you bend the top part backwards and slide your iPhone into the microfiber-lined interior.
Apple sells the Smart Battery Cases in black and white. Both pick up dirt and lint quite easily, but it’s nothing a Magic Eraser or damp microfiber cloth can’t easily pick up. Still, seeing so much dirt and dust on the cases made me question realize how dirty my pants and jacket pockets are. They’re filthy even when you think they’re clean.
The silicone can bruise easily.
Image: ZLATA IVELEVA/MASHABLE
The inside is lined with microfiber to not scratch the glass back of the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR.
Image: ZLATA IVELEVA/MASHABLE
If you’re worried about dirt showing, definitely go with the black one because the white one looks gross after pocketing. My white review unit for the iPhone XR also got stained with some blue markings and suffered a small cut. The stains look like pen ink or dye from jeans, but I’m positive neither was near the case during a recent trip in Seattle. Worse, I couldn’t remove the stains with a Magic Eraser or any mild detergent. So keep that in mind.
The inside still has a single LED indicator that lights up when it’s charging. And there’s still no physical on/off button or battery level indicator like there is on other battery cases. Apple’s philosophy with these battery cases is to always keep your iPhone charged up when it’s on. The battery case drains first and then the iPhone’s internal battery depletes second.
Battery level is shown on the widget screen.
Image: ZLATA IVELEVA/MASHABLE
Without any physical battery indicator on the battery cases, the only way to see the charge level is within the battery widget.
Now, the changes: the hump is better disguised. Instead of bulging out from the middle, Apple’s extended the case’s built-in battery to extend to the bottom. It’s more elegant in my opinion, but only barely so. I don’t have particularly large hands and I didn’t find the cases to be unwieldy. They are both pocket and jacket friendly. Skinny jeans or tight pants, not so much.
The new Smart Battery Cases also don’t have any “chin” on the front. This is largely due to the repositioning of the battery toward the lower backside. It’s a small change, but it made it easier to use my iPhone with one hand as the case doesn’t add much more height.
Furthermore, the Smart Battery Cases support wireless charging using the Qi-based wireless charging standard (if you’ve already cut cords from your life).
Doubles your iPhone’s battery life
Unlike other battery cases which use micro USB or USB-C, Apple’s charges with a Lightning cable.
Image: ZLATA IVELEVA/MASHABLE
At the end the end of the day, a battery case is a battery case and all of them add bulk, so aesthetics are secondary to function.
And from my two weeks of usage, Apple’s battery cases are top notch. I don’t recall feeling much (if any) heat coming from the battery cases when connected to my iPhones. Most importantly, with a case on, my iPhones lasted days. I easily got up to two days of battery life with a Smart Battery Case connected to my iPhone XS and XS Max.
More impressive was the iPhone XR paired with a Smart Battery Case. As I said in our review of the XR, the phone has the longest battery life of any iPhone, and with the battery case on, I went up to three days before needing to reach for the outlet. That’s mighty impressive and the best combination if you care more about battery life than, say, display technology or resolution.
Below are Apple’s quoted battery life extensions for each iPhone with the Smart Battery Case on. Mixed usage will vary and I didn’t go about measuring any precise hours, but as I already said, you’re gonna at least double your iPhone’s battery life.
If you’re a lighter iPhone user, you’re gonna see even more impressive battery life with the case on. But then you should be asking yourself why you’d need this battery case.
iPhone XR
Internet use: Up to 22 hours (up from 15 hours)
Talk time: Up to 39 hours (up from 25 hours)
Video playback: Up to 27 hours (up from 16 hours)
iPhone XS
Internet use: Up to 21 hours (up from 12 hours)
Talk time: Up to 33 hours (up from 20 hours)
Video playback: Up to 25 hours (up from 14 hours)
iPhone XS Max
Internet use: Up to 20 hours (up from 13 hours)
Talk time: Up to 37 hours (up from 25 hours)
Video playback: Up to 25 hours (up from 15 hours)
One thing worth noting: Apple doesn’t sell a Smart Battery Case for the iPhone X. Popping an iPhone X into the battery case designed for the iPhone XS will work, but there are some imperfections. Namely, the iPhone X’s rear dual camera bump doesn’t fit snug because it’s a hair larger on the iPhone XS and the speaker grilles don’t align with the perforations on the battery case because the iPhone XS’s grilles are asymmetric.
Make sure you have a fast charger or you’ll be waiting all day to charge up the Smart Battery Cases.
Image: zlata iveleva/mashable
Another important thing to be aware of with the Smart Battery Cases is how they charge. Turns out the type of power charger you use matters a lot.
Here’s the simple breakdown:
A 5-watt charger (the one that comes with iPhones) charges your iPhone first and then the battery case
A 10-watt or 12-watt charger charges both the iPhone and case at the same time at a constant surge of 5-watts
An 18-watt charger fast charges up your iPhone and then the case
Any power adapter with 30-watts or higher fast charges both the iPhone and battery case at the same time
Why the convoluted charging? Apple says this “Smart Charging” helps preserve the health of both the iPhone’s battery and the Smart Battery Cases’s battery.
So make sure you have the right adapter and right cable for the job or you might find charging up the Smart Battery Case to be painfully slow.
Wireless charging also isn’t very quick and I wouldn’t recommend using this method unless you leave it on overnight.
The best alternatives
Moment’s iPhone Battery Photo Case is a cheaper and more versatile alternative if you’re a big mobile shooter.
Image: ZLATA IVELEVA/MASHABLE
The $129 price tag is a bit steep, though. It’s $30 more than the ones for the iPhone 6/6S and iPhone 7.
My pick for best alternative battery case is Moment’s iPhone Battery Photo Case. It’s got a similar design with a nice speckled design, works with Moment’s excellent mobile photography lenses of which I’m a huge fan of, speaker grilles that redirect the sound forwards, and a physical shutter button for use with Moment’s own camera app. The battery case is designed for the iPhone X, but it worked perfectly with my iPhone XS; the only cons are the misaligned speaker grilles and no wireless charging support, but I can live without both. It’s also cheaper at $99.99.
Mophie’s Juice Pack Access is similarly priced at $99.95, but hasn’t been released at the time of this writing so I can’t say if it’s any good. But its features do look well-rounded with an on/off switch, battery level indicator, wireless charging, USB-C charging port along with Lightning port access, colors other than black such as blue, red, and gold. Mophie’s track record is also solid, so it’s likely the Juice Pack Access will be a good product.
Most people will not need Apple’s Smart Battery Case. It’s not for everyone, but they power power users. It’s perfect for vacations in my opinion. Regardless, if you’re always nearly drained, you can’t go wrong with Apple’s battery case.
Let’s not beat around the bush: Oprah is a living legend. We don’t just wish we were friends with her, we wish we were her.
And if you aren’t on board with that idea, then perhaps you should watch this mesmerising video of her handing out shots of tequila in her pyjamas on a cruise ship.
Oprah posted the video of herself handing out shots of everyone’s favourite route to inebriation as “Lady Marmalade” was blasted in the background.
Oh and, just in case you thought it couldn’t get more iconic than that, she also just so happened to post the video with a Hamilton lyric in her caption: “I’m not throwing away my shot.”
The tequila-shot moment occurred during O Magazine’s “Girls’ Getaway” cruise, which looks like one hell of a wild ride, tbh.
You know you’re something special when a doctor tells you they’ve not seen anything quite like you before.
That’s what Conan O’Brien was told by his doctor when he went for a physical and ended up getting a DNA test. The results? Well, turns out he’s even more Irish than actual Irish folk living in Ireland.
“So, he took a DNA sample and I left, two weeks later he called me up and he said, ‘I’ve never, ever, ever had a DNA result like this before and I’ve been doing this for 10 years,’” O’Brien told Stephen Colbert.
“‘You are 100 percent Irish,’” the doctor told him. “He said: ‘I’ve never seen a 100 percent anything. He said ‘I’ve been doing this a lot, I’ve seen 93.5 [percent], I’ve seen 96.1, I’ve seen 97.’”
“‘No one is 100 percent Irish,’ he said,” O’Brien added. Even in Ireland, people aren’t 100 percent Irish, according to O’Brien’s doctor.
“You will find that the most Irish-looking people are like 86 percent, 94 percent Irish. The Lucky Charms leprechaun, true fact, 11 percent Spanish,” he added.
For old friends Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert, a regular sit-down talk show interview is just not quite personal enough.
That’s why the pair decided to get right up close and personal inside a cardboard box labelled “personal space,” for an interview on The Late Show.
Inside the “personal space,” Carell and Colbert discussed topics such as why Carell is such a “zaddy” now, and whether he’s sick of people quoting The Office to him.
Oh and they also suck on the same candy cane for a good 20 seconds.
Three British lawmakers on Monday endorsed reports stating that women activists detained in Saudi Arabia have been tortured, and said responsibility for what is likely a violation of international law could lie with “Saudi authorities at the highest level”.
The conclusions of the panel indicate growing uneasiness among Western allies with alleged rights abuses under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader who is already facing reproach over last year’s murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
A United Nations investigator is now leading an international inquiry into the murder, which has tarnished the crown prince’s standing in the West after he won accolades for seeking to ease social restrictions and end the country’s dependence on oil revenues.
WATCH: Can Mohammed bin Salman’s PR spin doctors fix Saudi’s image? | The Listening Post (07:48)
Those reforms have been accompanied by a crackdown on dissent, including the arrest of over a dozen women’s rights campaigners starting last May, most of whom had advocated for the right to drive and an end to the male guardianship system.
Amnesty International said last month it had documented 10 cases of torture and abuse – including sexual harassment, electrocution, flogging and death threats – while the activists were held at an undisclosed location last summer.
Reuters reported earlier that an aide to Prince Mohammed who was fired for his role in the Khashoggi murder personally oversaw the torture of at least one of the women months earlier.
Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy where public protests and political parties are banned, says it does not have political prisoners and denies torture allegations. Officials have said monitoring of activists is needed to ensure social stability.
Yet British lawmakers Crispin Blunt, Layla Moran and Paul Williams said they found reports by international rights groups and news media to be credible, describing the detainees’ treatment as “cruel, inhuman and degrading”.
The lawmakers, who formed a review panel with prominent lawyers, said the Saudi authorities had also violated international law by holding the detainees incommunicado and denying them access to legal advice.
Culpability rests not only with direct perpetrators but also those who are responsible for or acquiesce to it, they added.
“The Saudi authorities at the highest levels could, in principle, be responsible for the crime of torture,” their final report said.
The Saudi government communications office did not reply to a request for comment on the report.
Some of the detained women’s rights activists have been accused in Saudi media of belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and supporting Qatar, which is locked in a dispute with Riyadh.
The British lawmakers called on the Saudi authorities to immediately release them and review the allegations against them, and to prosecute those responsible for their mistreatment.
They said requests to visit the detainees in Saudi Arabia have gone unanswered.
“The Saudi women activist detainees have been treated so badly as to sustain an international investigation for torture,” said Blunt, a lawmaker in Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party.
“Saudi Arabia stands on the brink. It is not too late to alter course and avert the spiral downwards to catastrophe that the detention of these activists represents,” he said.
WATCH: Saudi cleric’s son – ‘Everyone is threatened’ | UpFront (11:45)
Maybe you’ve heard the warning: The country is beset by a menace. A fringe conservative minority is holding Congress hostage, extracting radical policy concessions over the will of the majority. And it’s leading the nation to fiscal, environmental and moral ruin.
Maybe you haven’t heard this part: These dangerous conservatives are Democrats.
Story Continued Below
“I am talking about the radical conservatives in the Democratic Party,” said Saikat Chakrabarti. “That’s who we need to counter. It’s the same across any number of issues—pay-as-you-go, free college, “Medicare for all.” These are all enormously popular in the party, but they don’t pass because of the radical conservatives who are holding the party hostage.”
Not long ago, this would have been an outlier position even among American liberals. Today, it’s the organizing principle of a newly empowered segment of the Democratic Party, one with a foothold in the new Congress.
Chakrabarti is chief of staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the closest thing to a new celebrity Congress has had in years—a 29-year-old former activist and bartender who, on the most recent Martin Luther King Day, sat on the same New York stage as the rapper Common, Black Panther director Ryan Coogler and MacArthur “genius award” winner Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Although it’s Ocasio-Cortez who gets all the headlines, she arguably wouldn’t be in Congress in the first place without the group Chakrabarti founded: Justice Democrats, a new, central player in the ongoing war for the soul of the Democratic Party. It was the Justice Democrats who recruited her in a quixotic campaign early on, providing a neophyte candidate with enough infrastructure to take down a party leader. And it is the Justice Democrats who see Ocasio-Cortez as just the opening act in an astonishingly ambitious plan to do nothing less than re-imagine liberal politics in America—and do it by whatever means necessary.
If that requires knocking out well-known elected officials and replacing them with more radical newcomers, so be it. And if it ends up ripping apart the Democratic Party in the process—well, that might be the idea.
“There is going to be a war within the party. We are going to lean into it,” said Waleed Shahid, the group’s spokesman.
The top Democrats in Congress have their hands full already, trying to use their new control of the House of Representatives to fight President Donald Trump, expand their majority in 2020, and maybe even capture the Senate. But they also find themselves with real anxieties about their left flank for the first time in memory. Justice Democrats is one of a handful of groups that represent a new and restive spirit in the party, a Tea Party-like populist coalition of voters awakened by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ cannonball run in 2016 and united by their superprogressive politics and a millennial disdain for the establishment.
Not all of their efforts have been successful—of the slate of 2018 candidates Justice Democrats recruited, only Ocasio-Cortez won—but they’ve been undeniably disruptive, and unafraid to go after people on their own side of the aisle. Nervous members of the Democratic establishment and leadership are watching, asking: Could they hurt the party as it tries to leverage its first majority in years and defeat Trump in 2020? And do they even care?
***
Four years ago, Ocasio-Cortez was waitressing at a Union Square taqueria, Donald Trump was the host of a fading reality-TV franchise, and Chakrabati was a digital entrepreneur who had nothing at all to do with politics. He was living in the San Francisco Bay Area and working for a digital payment processing company when he suddenly, unexpectedly found himself electrified by a 73-year-old presidential candidate named Bernie Sanders. “I liked what he was saying. He seemed like he was one of the people,” Chakrabarti says. “It wasn’t just that he was a progressive, but that he really cared about building a movement around these ideas.”
He reached out to Claire Sandberg, the digital organizing director of the Sanders campaign, who was arranging “Bernstorms” around the country, getting previously apolitical activists together to host phone banking and door-knocking parties.
Eventually, it became clear that Bernie wasn’t going to win. But it felt clear to Chakrabati that the political revolution Sanders had stoked was close to coming to fruition. He began meeting with a small group of his fellow Sandersistas to figure out how to channel that energy in the next election.
Like Chakrabarti, they were entirely from outside government, and mostly outside politics altogether. Corbin Trent was a political neophyte who’d been volunteering for Sanders in Knoxville, Tennessee; when the food truck he owned burned down, he left Knoxville and joined the campaign in Vermont. Alexandra Rojas was a student in community college in Orange County, Calif., when Sanders announced his run — “It was the first time I got excited about politics,” she said — and started volunteering on campus.
Today, she’s the executive director of Justice Democrats, and Trent, the group’s co-founder and former communications director, is Ocasio-Cortez’s spokesman. The group’s current communications director and perhaps fiercest firebrand is Shahid, the only member in its leadership who had any experience in politics before the Sanders campaign.
As the 2016 primary got underway, Shahid was working at an immigrants rights legal aid group in Philadelphia; people would come in—asylum seekers, undocumented immigrants—and Shahid recalls telling them, day after day, to just keep watching CNN because Obama was bound to pass something clarifying their status sooner or later. “It was the most demoralizing, uninspiring time of my life,” he said.
Disappointed with Obama, Shahid got a job with the Working Families Party, which was all-in for Sanders, and after the election began trying to figure out how to make big systemic changes in politics, or “cultureshifts”—not just winning arguments, but changing the terms of the whole debate.
“The idea is that you bring moral questions to the public’s attention, and have the public rally around it,” he says. “Reframe the issue so that the choices are stark, and let the public decide rather than people in power.” He points to how the “99 percent” became a buzzword after Occupy Wall Street; how Obama and Hillary Clinton eventually came to oppose the Keystone Pipeline after supporting it; how “Abolish ICE” quickly went from a fringy Twitter slogan to one embraced by mainstream Democrats. Either you favor ripping kids from their homes, or you don’t. And if you don’t, suddenly the policy choices aren’t incremental: They’re rather stark.
The group started meeting up even before the 2016 primary was over, and its members began looking ahead to the 2018 midterms—figuring that any Democratic president would need a very different Congress to get anything done. Along with Cenk Uygur, the progressive activist and founder of the liberal media company The Young Turks, they started a group called Brand New Congress.
The original idea was thrilling in its ambition, if absurdly unworkable: They would create a slate to replace Congress entirely, recruiting 435 people across both parties to run for the House, while BNC would serve as the back office for all of them, handling mail, digita, and press.
Chakrabarti, Uygur and others saw the effort begin to founder under its own weight. And in the wake of Trump’s shocking win, the notion of a nonpartisan effort to replace every member of Congress with some nonpolitical person didn’t seem as important as creating the sharpest possible counterweight on the left. And so after the election, Chakrabarti, Trent, Rojas, Uygur and others split off to found Justice Democrats.
This time, the goal was far more modest: Push the Democratic party closer to Sanders’ politics by challenging centrist Democrats in their primaries. The idea was to recruit 12 working-class candidates to confront incumbents, muster some of that Sanders-style populist energy on a local level and push incumbents to the left. If a couple of breaks went their way, they might even score an upset or two.
“After the election, was I mad at Donald Trump? I guess, kinda,” said Uygur, who ended up leaving the group when a series of previously deleted misogynistic blog posts were unearthed. “But mainly I was mad at the Democratic Party for blowing it. How could you lose to this guy?”
“I came to realize Democrats are never going to learn,” he said, “and that the only way to make a difference is to defeat the corrupt corporate Democrats. They get paid to lose. The corporate donor pays them to be weak, and pays Republicans to be strong.”
The group didn’t have many litmus tests for candidates they were willing to support, but they drew a few red lines. One was a ban on all corporate PAC money, something that soon became standard fare for 2018 candidates. On policy, if you weren’t for Medicare for all, “it usually meant you weren’t our type of candidate,” said Uygur.
Even now, Justice Democrats is a shoestring operation. It has no headquarters, no major benefactors and raised less than $3 million in the 2018 cycle, mostly small dollar donations from people not used to much political giving. But it built a 300,000 strong email list by engaging with young activists on the ground and online.
A typical “big donor” to the group is Arden Buck, an 84-year-old retired research engineer in Colorado who gave $10,000 after receiving a windfall insurance payout. I found him through public fundraising records; when I asked him how he found about Justice Democrats, he said he saw them mentioned on MSNBC and that he was driven by concern about greenhouse gases and wanted to give money to groups that could use it the most. “I am focused on climate change. If we don’t take care of the environment, social justice is beside the point,” he told me.
For all its passion, the group might have been just another voice in the political wilderness if it hadn’t been for the success of Ocasio-Cortez. She had come to the founders’ attention in 2016 when her brother, Gabriel, who had heard about Brand New Congress, nominated her to be one of its candidates. Chakrabarti was still with BNC, and he told Business Insider earlier this month that the group didn’t really see her district as a likely target: It was occupied by Joe Crowley, the powerful 10-term incumbent from Queens, and seemed unwinnable. But after a few phone calls and a meeting, he had a different thought: “Holy Crap. You are an incredible candidate.”
As her race heated up, and it became clear that this 28-year-old was actually gaining ground on one of the most powerful Democrats in the House, Shahid encouraged the entire leadership of Justice Democrats to momentarily abandon their other efforts and go all in on running her campaign.
The challenge of running a young, underfunded working-class candidate became apparent early on. When Shahid joined Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign, she was still working four nights a week as a bartender in Manhattan. He would set up meetings with community leaders only to have Ocasio-Cortez say that she couldn’t do them because they interfered with her work schedule.
“I would get so frustrated with her. ‘You can’t do this full-time bartending thing and run for Congress!’ And she would say, ‘What do you want me to do? I have to work.’”
They thought they were going to get 30 percent of the vote. Ocasio-Cortez would text Shahid excitedly whenever there was a report that Crowley had moved a little to the left—embracing Medicare for all, for example. That was proof, as they saw it, that their mission was advancing. Shahid says he felt more than a twinge of regret for leading people on.
“We would go to these fundraisers in the Bronx, and there would be ex-cops in the room and they would have tears in their eyes. It was a double thing for me. I had just come off the Bernie campaign and here AOC was, she was so fucking inspiring and so charismatic that grown men are crying and I would think to myself, ‘We just have no chance here. Everyone is going to be so disappointed!’”
***
At one level, Justice Democrats’ strategy failed. Their original goal was to recruit 12 candidates, provide them with media, field and fundraising help as needed, and try to pick off a few vulnerable seats. Of those candidates, 11 lost.
But they also notched a success beyond anything they’d planned for. Ocasio-Cortez took on one of the most powerful congressional Democrat not named Nancy Pelosi, and by a decisive margin, she unseated him—shaking the party’s power structure and getting nationwide attention for a democratic socialist newcomer who embodied nearly everything that thrilled young movement voters. Several other candidates they’d endorsed, but weren’t as closely involved with, also won, including Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.
The Crowley defeat brought to mind Dave Brat’s surprise 2014 victory in Virginia, taking out Republican majority leader Eric Cantor by primarying him from the right. Shahid looks back at the power of what a single race can do, recalling the Politico headline that ran at the time: “Eric Cantor Loss Kills Immigration Reform.”
“It was just one fucking race,” he said. “One fucking race and suddenly immigration reform was dead.”
The Sanders race had established the existence of a populist Democratic base eager to vote against its own party’s establishment. Now there was an organization willing to lead the charge. “It’s remarkable,” said Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which started a decade ago as a liberal alternative to what it saw as its stodgy counterparts in Washington. “Everybody is so concerned about clout and about relationships, and they have no relationships, so they just go for it, taking big chances.”
The fact that Ocasio-Cortez, and for that matter Pressley, Tlaib and Omar don’t hail from the traditional background in a body in which the median wealth is over $1 million is very much part of the point. As Ocasio-Cortez faces criticism for her bank account, her wardrobe and her supposed lack of knowledge of the details of policy, the strategy from Justice Democrats and her team has been to face it head on.
“Our theory is that when a working-class person wins, when a person without a political background wins, there is going to be a backlash—you don’t have experience, you don’t know anything, you are dumb,” said Shahid. “All of this happened with Ocasio.”
This, as he sees it, is the culture shift, a way of turning the lens around to reveal the now stark choices. “That is an awesome story for people to see, because the way the D.C. media and the conservative media in particular tear into AOC around being a working-class person or a person of color or a Puerto Rican, I don’t think the public likes it very much,” he said. “The public sees a Cinderella story, a bartender who goes against the machine and wins. And you see the way she is dragged by the D.C. establishment and the media, we lean into it, as if to say, ‘If that’s what they think about her, what do you think they think about you?’”
In Congress, fellow Democrats don’t know quite what to make of AOC or the Justice Democrats. Ocasio-Cortez’s bark may not be as serious as her bite; although she livestreamed a sit-in of Pelosi’s office, she also voted for her for Speaker and has been supportive of her fellow Democrats. It’s not lost on her colleagues, however, that the group that helped vault her into place—and who have two founders leading her office—is the sworn enemy of the establishment she needs to work with.
“In person, she is lovely and is trying to get along with her colleagues,” said the House Democrat. “But she is going to have to navigate the fact it was the Justice Democrats who brought her to prominence, and their currency is going to be continue to shake up what they call the establishment and run primaries against people.”
David Hopkins, a professor of political science at Boston College, says systematically targeting fellow Democrats really crosses a line in American politics. “I mean, even the Freedom Caucus doesn’t do that,” he said. “We sort of know how stuff happens in Congress. It requires a lot of negotiation and compromise. Starting a bunch of internal fights within your party is not usually step one.”
Some people in Congress closely aligned with the group have publicly distanced themselves from any effort to cast a wide net of insurgent challenges. Ro Khanna, a second-term congressman from Silicon Valley who himself defeated an eight-term Democrat in a primary in 2016, sent Justice Democrats a direct message on Twitter to join the cause soon after they formed. The group considers him, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, to have been their closest allies in the last Congress; Khanna was the only sitting member of Congress to endorse Ocasio-Cortez. But today he said the party needs for all of its component parts to keep their eyes on the real prize. “Our primary focus has to be stop Donald Trump, to defeat the Republicans, particularly in the Senate. That is the single most effective thing we can do to advance progressive politics,” Khanna said. “I have been encouraging our party to save our fire for Republicans rather than on intraparty disputes.”
Ocasio-Cortez herself has sent mixed messages on this score. According to a report in POLITICO, New Jersey Representative Frank Pallone, a moderate Democrat, fought with Ocasio-Cortez on her idea for a select committee on a Green New Deal in a closed-door meeting of Democrats in November. Rather than embrace the narrative of being a firebrand, Ocasio-Cortez, who hadn’t yet been sworn in, denied the story was true. A few weeks later, POLITICO also reported that Ocasio-Cortez and allies were eyeing a primary challenge to Hakeem Jeffries, a young Brooklyn lawmaker who angered progressives in part for taking Joe Crowley’s position in the leadership over the more liberal Barbara Lee in California. Ocasio-Cortez took issue with the story on Twitter, without denying it, lamenting that the article was “printed + distributed to **Congressional offices**” and only later, when pressed by one of her followers, saying it wasn’t accurate.
Jeffries’ camp noted, pointedly, that the story didn’t include an on-the-record denial from Ocasio-Cortez herself. They also told me she hadn’t reached out to Jeffries herself to deny it. Jeffries himself was quoted citing the lyrics of Notorious B.I.G: “Spread love, it’s the Brooklyn way.”
“That quote was sending a message,” said one Jeffries supporter in New York. “I am from Brooklyn. Don’t fuck with me.”
***
For now, it is still unclear where Justice Democrats will fit in among the various groups that emerged in big numbers out of the 2016 election, including Democratic Socialists of America, Indivisible, Brand New Congress, Swing Left and the Sunrise Movement, just to name a few. Justice Democrats made a bet that a single giant felled would rewrite the political landscape, and so far they have been proven right.
The Green New Deal, a joint production of Justice Democrats and the Sunrise Movement, has 45 co-sponsors and is embraced by several Democrats running for president. Justice Democrats helped galvanize support, getting 150 people to sit in at Nancy Pelosi’s office just after the midterms.
Shahid, the group’s spokesman, predicted that, besides further agitation on the Green New Deal, the group would attempt to push for free college and an end to mass incarceration. And to force some support, they won’t be afraid to threaten primary challenges against anyone unwilling to sign on.
“We already are a pariah in Washington, D.C.,” he said proudly. “It’s about attention. Either it helps you gain leverage because people are scared of you or you lose leverage because people are annoyed with you. We will see.”
So far, the results of this aggressive outside game are mixed, at best. Despite the group’s success attracting support for the Green New Deal, incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi denied calls for a select committee on the idea. And 45 co-sponsors is a long way from the 218 needed to actually pass something.
“You are not going to make 218 people in one session of Congress afraid,” said Hopkins. “How much leverage does Ocasio-Cortez have? If she can wave her hand and endanger the reelection prospects of even pretty liberal members, then that is one thing. They may not like it, but they will be forced to get in line. But does she have that kind of power? If you take a shot and miss, you are very much likely going to be worse off than even if you didn’t take a shot at all.”
“I view these outside groups like this skeptically. Are they trying to build a movement or start a riot?” said Colin Strother, a Texas operative and an adviser to Representaative Henry Cuellar, one of Justice Democrats’ top targets in 2020. “I never heard anything about Justice Democrats until a few weeks ago. Are the people running it political professionals? Groups like them, they come along for a cycle or two, they disappear and something else crops up in their place. Democrats do best when we keep our disagreements around the kitchen table instead of in the front yard where everybody can see.”
Buck, the Colorado donor, says he is thrilled with Ocasio-Cortez—“She is fabulous”—but wary of what Justice Democrats want to do next. “It is little tricky. People without experience can shake things up, but I worry that they will be sitting ducks for the Republicans.”
As they move into the next election cycle, their hope is that Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Tlaib and Omar form more of a unit, one in which they share staff, best practices and strategy, and care less about personal brand-building. Justice Democrats plans to provide cover with its 350,000-person email list and active social media feeds.
Limited resources mean that playing in the presidential primary will be difficult, but the energized new left has already seen some of what were once considered its most outré ideas—the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, Abolish ICE and free college—become a central part of several likely presidential campaign platforms. Next cycle, members of the group plan to target from five to 10 House Democrats who occupy safe blue seats. Some names of the targets have already been floated out, like Henry Cuellar, but Sean McElwee, a liberal activist and co-founder of Data for Progress, where he works closely with Justice Democrats, listed a handful more who are vulnerable to a Crowley-sized challenge, including Kathleen Rice of Long Island, Jim Cooper of Nashville and Dutch Ruppersberger of Baltimore. (Shahid, asked if they were targets, declined to list any names.)
Strother, the Texas operative, said people from outside Cuellar’s South Texas district—a place where guns and gas drilling are a way of life and an economic driver—don’t understand the absolutism. How, he asked, could a party that prides itself on being welcoming now try to kick apostates out of the tent?
“The Republican Party went through a lot of these same fights after they won in 2010, and they were not well-served by them,” he said, “and the Democrats should learn that lesson.”
“Diversity is one of the values of our party,” he said. “We have Muslims in our party, we have Buddhists in our party, we have Baptists in our party, we have everything under the sun in our party. We say you can worship what you want, you can love what you want and you can be what you want. Then how is it that we are going to tell people you can’t think what you want?”
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