Elon Musk’s new flamethrower has raked in over $3.5 million in a single day.
Musk showcased his new flamethrower on Instagram on Saturday night, when it went on sale for $500. In a post on Twitter last night, he announced they sold 7,000 units. He posted an update early this morning, saying they’ve now sold 10,000 units.
Elon Musk’s flamethrower, via The Boring Company
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
I came into this week’s Supergirl expecting absolutely nothing, so I can’t say I was disappointed. The series has been on solid footing since returning from its winter break, but it was inevitable that a Morgan Edge-centric episode was going to kill the show’s momentum flat. I suppose we should be thankful that “For Good” had as many memorable moments as it did despite a generally bland conflict.
For all that Supergirl has been riding high on the strength of Season 3’s big baddie, Reign, Edge is a painful reminder of how rarely the show actually does right by its villains. We’ve had several episodes framed around the conflict between Edge and lena Luthor so far this season, and none of them have managed to mold Edge into a compelling, fully realized character., As much as I disliked the show’s handling of Maxwell Lord in Season 1, at least I understood what that character wanted and where he was coming from. I don’t feel that I understand Edge at all. What motivates him to be such a jerk? What is he actually trying to accomplish beyond playing up this feud? Why can’t someone with that much money afford a comb?
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Welcome back to Hero Makeover, our video series where professional costume designers and makeup artists transform real-world heroes into their favorite characters.
Our hero for Episode 5 is a transgender woman from St. Louis named Alexa. Through cosplay, Alexa has found confidence and been able to comfortably appear in public as a woman. Watch the season finale of Hero Makeover in the player above to see Alexa’s cosplay transformation into D.Va from Overwatch.
Be sure to follow Hero Makeover on Facebook to check out the previous episodes, all of which are voiced by Jennifer Hale, the prolific voice actress who’s worked on a number of video game franchises, including Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, Baldur’s Gate, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s Republican allies in Congress advanced their monthslong assault on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election on Monday, voting along partisan lines to release a classified memo slamming officials from the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation who have investigated the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
The episode has more than a touch of Washington theater to it: Republican staffers wrote the memo, and Republican members of Congress, who always had the power to vote to release it, spent weeks calling on themselves to do so.
Republicans have argued that releasing their own memo is a matter of transparency. But they voted down a Democratic effort to release a memo authored by Democratic staffers that they say combated some of the inaccuracies in the GOP memo.
Trump has five days to block the memo’s release, but has said he will side with congressional Republicans on the matter. Making the document public will allow journalists and the public to at least partially assess the claims it makes. But fully judging its merits will be difficult without access to the underlying intelligence information, which is also classified and will not be released.
And there’s more at stake than D.C. grandstanding: The release of the document is part of a pattern of behavior by the president and his congressional allies — all of it apparently aimed at undermining Mueller’s probe and shielding Trump from scrutiny.
Since Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey — then the official responsible for the Russia investigation — last summer, the president, Republican members of Congress and the right-wing media have battled to undermine public perceptions of the bureau and of the Justice Department:
Andrew McCabe, Comey’s former deputy, stepped down Monday after weeks of pressure from Trump and Republicans. Republicans have charged that McCabe was biased against the president because his wife ran for a Virginia state Senate seat as a Democrat, but FBI documents released earlier this month indicate he followed bureau recusal rules. The day after Trump fired Comey, the president called McCabe to complain about Comey being allowed to take a government-funded plane back to Washington, NBC reported Monday. When McCabe said he wasn’t asked to authorize the flight but would have approved it, Trump told McCabe to ask his wife — who lost her race for state Senate — how it feels to be a loser, and hung up the phone, according to NBC.
The president, Republicans in Congress, and the right-wing media have spun tales of a dark conspiracy involving Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, two FBI officials who were having an affair and exchanged text messages critical of Trump and other politicians from both parties. The evidence suggests Page and Strzok were actually driven more by loyalty to the FBI than partisan political considerations.
The memo the House voted to release Monday reportedly focuses on criticizing Rod Rosenstein, a Republican Trump appointee at the Justice Department who now has responsibility over the Mueller probe. The memo, The New York Times reported, accuses Rosenstein of approving an application to surveil a former Trump campaign official last spring. Trump has long resented Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller as special counsel after Trump fired Comey. Trump reportedly considered firing Rosenstein last summer, but instead ordered Mueller’s firing — only to back away the decision after his lawyer threatened to quit.
The sustained assault on the FBI seems to have affected perceptions of the bureau among Republicans and independents. Just over half of the public has at least a fair amount of trust in the FBI, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, down 12 points since 2015. The percentage of Republicans and independents saying they trust the agency dropped by 22 points and 15 points, respectively.
The memo lays the groundwork for that distrust. It was the work of the office of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the House Intelligence Committee chairman and close Trump ally who recused himself from the committee’s investigation into ties between Trump and Russia after he was caught last year promoting a different surveillance scandal with intelligence cooked up by Trump White House officials.
The memo reportedly suggests that FBI agents obscured their reliance on a controversial dossier about Trump’s ties to Russia when they sought a warrant to spy on Carter Page, a Trump campaign adviser. Republicans have long sought to discredit the dossier, which was compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
Committee members voted along partisan lines earlier this month to allow any member of Congress to read Nunes’ classified memo. Some of the Republicans who read the memo described the allegations as “sickening” and “worse than Watergate.” Democrats who read it said it was a partisan hack job.
“Rife with factual inaccuracies,” said Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the committee. “This may help carry White House water, but it is a deep disservice to our law enforcement professionals,” Schiff said.
The Justice Department, which has not been provided access to the memo, warned Nunes last week that it would be “extraordinarily reckless” to release the memo without giving the FBI and DOJ the chance to review the document and warn them about the national security risk of making it public.
It is extremely unusual for lawmakers — especially Republican lawmakers — to clash so publicly with law enforcement on issues of national security and classification. Trump, who has publicly railed against the FBI and portrayed himself as a victim of the agency’s overreach, has indicated he will side with Congressional Republicans over the Justice Department.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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When the first clip of Black Panther was released, it gave fans some idea of the powers King T’Challa’s (Chadwick Boseman) suit was capable of. In a new TV spot, though, it looks like it’s far more powerful than anyone could have expected.
As previously explained by T’Challa’s sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), not only is the suit bulletproof, but it absorbs kinetic energy. The Black Panther can then use that energy to deliver a devastating blow to an enemy. However, as seen in this new video, it’s able to handle more than a single baddie. Instead, the superhero can punch the ground, creating a pulse that can take out a number of foes at once.
Powers and technology like this are one of the exciting things about the upcoming Black Panther movie. It was well-established in Captain America: Civil War that T’Challa’s home country of Wakanda is very isolated from the rest of the world. That gives this movie the room to explore incredibly advanced technology that might seem crazy, even for a Marvel Cinematic Universe that includes aliens, green rage monsters, and a rich guy in a flying metal suit.
It’s enough to make you wonder what else Black Panther and his adversaries can do in the movie. If these are the powers being given away in teasers and trailers, there’s bound to be some very interesting tricks up this movie’s sleeve.
Luckily, you won’t have to wait long to find out all of Black Panther‘s secrets. The movie opens in theaters on February 16.
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The 2018 Royal Rumble was an incredible, emotional night for WWE. It included the first women’s Royal Rumble, which had a plethora of surprises, and more importantly, it put the PPV back on the right track, after years of missteps. Warning: Spoilers for the 2018 Royal Rumble below.
The winner of the 31st men’s Royal Rumble match was none other than Shinsuke Nakamura. Asuka won the first women’s Royal Rumble. Two Japanese “strong style” fan favorites will be fighting for the world titles at WrestleMania 34. But just as important as who win is exactly how they won. Both Rumble matches took pains to celebrate the past, while also emphasizing the importance of the future. And both matches gave fans what they wanted, instead of presuming to tell them what they wanted.
It’s a lesson WWE has learned the hard way over the past several years, starting with the 2014 Royal Rumble. That match was won by part-time wrestler Batista, and it didn’t include fan-favorite Daniel Bryan. The fans hated the result so much that WWE turned Batista heel and included Daniel Bryan in WrestleMania XXX‘s main event.
For the 2015 Royal Rumble, WWE put Daniel Bryan in the main event, but he was eliminated unceremoniously shortly after entering. When Roman Reigns–widely seen as WWE’s new Cena-type champion–won the match, the majority of fans booed and heckled the result. Even The Rock, who came to the ring to raise his cousin’s arm, couldn’t stem the negative reaction.
By 2016, Daniel Bryan was injured and all but retired. And WWE had finally figured out how to best utilize Roman Reigns as a Rumble participant. By teasing a possible Reigns win, WWE could unite the majority of fans against him. And thus, whoever eliminated Reigns or won the Rumble instead of him would get a massive response and be treated like a conquering hero.
“Well, it’s not what I wanted. But at least it’s not Roman!” fans would say.
WWE had a figurative rubber stamp; the die-hard fans would cheer and embrace any decent WWE Superstar who wasn’t Roman Reigns. But rather than take this moment to build a promising up-and-comer, WWE played it safe. Triple H won the Rumble in 2016. Randy Orton won the Rumble in 2017.
It was understandable on a business level: give the honor to the superstar with the highest name recognition, to promote the biggest event of the year. But this went against historical precedence. The Rumble once had a proud history of elevating new main eventers, like it did for Yokozuna in 1993, Shawn Michaels in 1995, Steve Austin in 1997, or Chris Benoit in 2004.
But in 2018, WWE went back to this original narrative premise. The final three participants in the men’s Rumble were John Cena, Roman Reigns, and Shinsuke Nakamura. Both Cena and Reigns are widely perceived as the company’s chosen ‘top guys,’ and it’s no coincidence that Nakamura eliminated both of them to win his first Rumble.
The decision challenges the status quo: What should a top WWE champion look like and act like? Nakamura fights a strike-heavy, fast style. He’s non-American. He’s luridly sexual. His promos are limited by his English fluency. But in less than three months, he’ll be fighting AJ Styles (who is a fairly unconventional superstar himself) for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania. WWE is testing the waters of its global, expanded audience.
WWE ran the exact same playbook for the women’s Rumble as well. The final three came down to the Bella Twins and Asuka–a figurative fight between the prior “Divas” era of sports entertainment and the current, modern era of “women’s wrestling.” Asuka’s win is meaningful for all the same reasons as Nakamura’s.
A decade ago, Asuka would have been booked as the “evil foreigner” and the monster heel. Her heavy accent would be a talking point to garner heat. Her moveset would be “unconventional” rather than a model for other wrestlers to aspire to. WWE is diversifying its roster, and part of that is accepting the different in-ring styles those cultures bring.
Ronda Rousey’s post-Rumble appearance, along with the announcement that she is a full-time superstar, only solidifies the division’s legitimacy. Can you imagine the women from ten years ago taking on a former MMA champion? Women’s wrestling has come such a long way.
Several weeks ago, I expressed a fear that WWE would turn the first women’s Royal Rumble into a joke. But last night, in both Rumbles, there were no ill-timed comedy spots. There were no match-altering interferences. And full-time, next-generation superstars were the respective victors of each. The Royal Rumble has paved a pristine road to WrestleMania. Let’s hope they don’t hit any potholes in the next three months.
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Final Fantasy XV has certainly received its share of bizarre DLC, from Power Rangers-like combat suits to a Cup Noodle hat, but one of the most unexpected additions to the game is the Assassin’s Festival, a limited-time event themed after Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series. The event has been running on PS4 and Xbox One since last August, but those who’ve yet to participate in it only have a few more days to do so.
The Assassin’s Festival is scheduled to conclude on January 31, making this your last opportunity to take part in the event and earn Assassin’s Creed-themed items. Like the Moogle Chocobo Carnvial, the Assassin’s Festival is free for all players to participate in and is a self-contained mode that’s accessed from the main menu. Along with quests and mini-games, the Assassin’s Festival adds gameplay elements from the Assassin’s Creed series to Final Fantasy XV, such as stealth segments and the ability to perform a Leap of Faith.
In addition to the Assassin’s Creed-themed mini-games and quests, players can earn Medjay’s Assassin’s Robes for all four of their party members from the event. Those who received a Dream Egg will also be able to unlock Master Assassin’s Robes for main character Noctis. However, the Dream Egg could only be obtained from the aforementioned Moogle Chocobo Carnival, which ended back in September.
Final Fantasy XV is available now for PS4 and Xbox One and will release for PC via Steam this year; however, PC players will miss out on the Assassin’s Festival event, as the Windows Edition is scheduled to arrive March 6. In addition to the base adventure, the PC version will come with all of the DLC included in the game’s season pass, as well as a new dungeon, vehicle, and boss fights. Square Enix is also bundling that content together for PS4 and Xbox One in the Final Fantasy XV: Royal Edition, which likewise releases on March 6.
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