August 18, 2018

The Daily Show: Spike Lee - "BlacKkKlansman" and Fighting the Rise of Racism in the Trump Era

Director Spike Lee discusses the modern-day relevance of "BlacKkKlansman," his film based on the true story of a black police officer who infiltrated the KKK in the 1970s.




CBS News: The man who inspired "BlacKkKlansman"



Spike Lee's latest film tells the story of a black detective who infiltrated the KKK. The movie, called "BlacKkKlansman," is based on the life of Ron Stallworth, who was the first black detective in Colorado Springs. Stallworth joined CBSN to talk about his story and what it's like to see it come to life in the new film.

August 17, 2018

'Mr. Trump' makes surprise appearance at Manafort trial

President Donald Trump has insisted that Paul Manafort’s federal trial has nothing to do with him, and his name has made only cameo appearances during the trial.

Which is why courtroom observers were startled on Thursday morning to hear the presiding judge, T.S. Ellis III, ask a “Mr. Trump” if he was present. And indeed he was.

“Mr. Trump, you’re here for what?” Ellis asked the court after he finished instructing jurors on their deliberations in Manafort’s case and as he turned his attention to the day’s other cases.

Heads craned around the room. Even by the standards of Trump’s wild reality-show presidency, the president’s appearance at Manfort’s trial would be an astonishing spectacle.

Perhaps he had come to personally announce that he was granting his disgraced former campaign chairman a pardon? Or might one of his sons, including the publicly combative Donald Trump Jr., be making a theatrical cameo to defend his father from special counsel Robert Mueller's "witch hunt"?

A Mr. Trump was in fact present. It was not the commander in chief, however, but one James Trump (no relation), an assistant U.S. attorney there for a supervised release hearing in an unrelated case.


Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/16/manafort-trial-trump-at-trial-779718



Courtroom observers were startled on Thursday morning to hear the presiding judge, T.S. Ellis III, ask a “Mr. Trump” if he was present. And indeed he was. Mark Wilson/Getty Images

August 17, 2018

This 1491 Map May Have Influenced Christopher Columbus

A 1491 map that likely influenced Christopher Columbus's conception of world geography is getting a new lease on life, now that researchers have revealed its faded, hidden details with cutting-edge technology.

Researchers pulled off this feat by turning to multispectral imaging, a powerful digital tool that can recover texts and images on damaged documents, said the project's leader, Chet Van Duzer, a board member of the multispectral imaging group known as The Lazarus Project at the University of Rochester in New York.

"Almost all of the writing on the map had faded to illegibility, making it an almost unstudyable object," Van Duzer told Live Science. But after the high-tech imaging uncovered the map's minutia, he was able to show that this 527-year-old map not only influenced Columbus but was also integral to Martin Waldseemüller's legendary 1507 map, which was the first to call the New World by the name "America." [See Images of the Newly Deciphered 1491 Map]

Long and winding road

The map — created by German cartographer Henricus Martellus in Florence — shows the world as Westerners knew it in 1491, right before Columbus set sail. In his 4-foot by 6.6-foot (1.2 by 2 meters) map, Africa (albeit, a greatly lopsided one) in on the left; above Africa is Europe, with Asia to the east; and Japan sits near the far-right corner.

Of course, the map doesn't show North and South America, which were still unknown to the Western world. (Although, arguably, the Vikings likely settled parts of Canada in about A.D. 1000.)


More: https://www.livescience.com/63339-map-influenced-christopher-columbus.html



The researchers used multispectral imaging to reveal the images and text on the map. Credit: Image by Lazarus Project / MegaVision / RIT / EMEL, courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

August 17, 2018

Stephen Colbert - Pod Save America Hosts: They Should Be Afraid Of Omarosa

Former White House staffers Tommy Vietor, Jon Lovett and Jon Favreau imagine that current Trump staff must be terrified that Omarosa recorded them saying terrible things.

August 17, 2018

Stephen Colbert - Monologue and Opening - 8/16/18, Tribute to Aretha Franklin

Another Day, Another Omarosa Tape



Omarosa reveals another recording of her conversation with Lara Trump offering her money to keep quiet.




Trump Freely Criticizes the Free Press



Trump responds to the press' pleas for a free press by attacking the free press.




A Late Show Tribute to Aretha Franklin



Aretha Franklin's powerful performance of " (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" at the Kennedy Center Honors that Stephen hosted.




Melania Trump Responds To Omarosa's Book



The Late Show's own Melania (aka Laura Benanti) responds to Omarosa's revelations that the Trump's are stuck in a miserable marriage.




NOW That's What I Call Racist



We've got Trump's greatest racist hits on an all new, "NOW That's What I Call Racist: Trump Edition."

August 17, 2018

Seth Meyers - Omarosa Says Trump Tried to Buy Her Silence: A Closer Look

Seth takes a closer look at the President's former confidante Omarosa Manigault Newman releasing another secret tape, as Trump's legal team threatened the special counsel in the Russia investigation.

August 17, 2018

Seth Meyers - Omarosa's Album, Apple Cars - Monologue - 8/15/18

The Kind of Story We Need Right Now: Waitress Body Slams Groper



Seth steps away from bleak and depressing news to share a news story about a waitress who body slammed a man who groped her.




Fred Judges a Book by Its Cover: How Hard Can it Be? by Allison Pearson



Fred Armisen guesses the plot of Allison Pearson's How Hard Can it Be? using only the book's cover.

August 17, 2018

The Daily Show: Hating Trump is a Booming Business, Remembering Aretha Franklin

Michael Kosta reports on the rising profitability of hating Trump after Peter Strzok raises half a million dollars to cover his legal fees on his GoFundMe.




Remembering Aretha Franklin - Between the Scenes



Trevor remembers the life and music of Aretha Franklin.

August 17, 2018

The Daily Show: Washington D.C.'s Unite the Right Rally Is a Flop & Leo Deblin Comes to the Rescue

White supremacists’ attempt to replicate the turnout of their 2017 rally falls flat, and Leo Deblin (Roy Wood Jr.) offers a service aimed at nervous Nazis.




Hasan Minhaj Says Goodbye to The Daily Show



The Daily Show bids farewell to correspondent Hasan Minhaj, whose final report combines MoviePass and Obamacare into one super subscription.

August 16, 2018

The Trump administration said weaker fuel standards would save lives. EPA experts disagree.

An analysis by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, EPA experts said, used faulty assumptions.

Staffers at the Environmental Protection Agency strongly criticized the logic behind a recent move to loosen future gas mileage rules for cars, at one point requesting that the EPA’s name and logo be removed from a key regulatory report.

Documents released Tuesday provide a window into a tense technical battle between experts at two separate government agencies — the EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), an agency of the Transportation Department — and show that just months or even weeks before the rollout of a massive new policy proposal, the two agencies behind it had major disagreements.

The contested policy represents one of the Trump administration’s single largest reversals of an Obama-era move to fight climate change by cutting polluting emissions from vehicle tailpipes. New evidence of an internal dispute will probably strengthen the hand of California and other states suing over the proposed changes. If finalized, the freeze would translate to an average fleetwide fuel economy of about 37 miles per gallon, rather than rising to more than 51 mpg by 2025.

“EPA’s technical issues have not been addressed, and the analysis performed … does not represent what EPA considers to be the best, or the most up-to-date, information available to EPA,” agency expert William Charmley wrote in a critique less than two months before the proposal was released.


More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/08/15/trump-administration-said-weaker-fuel-standards-would-save-lives-epa-experts-disagree/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8acd6b22cb11



Traffic heads eastbound on Route 50 in Bowie, Md. Internal documents show the Environmental Protection Agency questioned the Trump administration’s finding that freezing Obama-era mileage standards would make drivers safer. (Susan Walsh/AP)