The iPhone’s notification sound is iconic at this point. While you've had the option to change the alert sound for notifications like messages, incoming emails, and reminders, as well as certain third-party apps, Apple never let us change the default alert sound for other notifications. That chime is arguably almost as strong as the iPhone brand itself, much like the Windows XP Bliss wallpaper or the Mac boot up sound.

In any case, Apple finally letting go of that legacy, and we’re all better for it. In the fourth public beta for iOS 17.2, Apple added a brand new section for changing the default alerts sound. While the feature is currently in testing, the iOS 17.2 should be available for the general audience in a matter of weeks. If you’re curious, you can install the public beta, without even installing a new profile.

How to change the default alert tone on your iPhone

Once your iPhone is updated, go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics to find the brand new Default Alerts at the bottom of the list. Here, you can change the sound to any of the text tones, new or classic.

While you’re here, you might also want to change the default haptic feedback. iOS 17 changed the haptic alerts, and there was no way to go back. With the iOS 17.2 update, Apple is letting you customize the haptics as well, so you can go back to how it used to be, or choose the haptic feedback level that works best for you.

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CNN anchor Chris Wallace was stunned by revelations about former President Donald Trump in Liz Cheney’s new book, and wondered if democracy would “hold” in a second Trump term.

Cheney has been dropping bombs and nuggets via CNN’s exclusive first look at her forthcoming book Oath and Honor, with colorful details about the events surrounding the January 6 attack on the Capitol that Trump incited.

On Tuesday’s edition of The Lead, Wallace joined host Jake Tapper to discuss the book with Jamie Gangel, the correspondent who scooped excerpts like who called Trump “Orange Jesus.”

Wallace expressed amusement and shock at some of the revelations, but concluded by questioning whether our system of democracy would withstand a second Trump term, while Gangel called it “chilling”:

JAKE TAPPER: I remember the Senate came very close to convicting Trump, was it 57, 57?

CHRIS WALLACE: But I was looking at that actually today. They needed 67, so they were ten shy. But, but still, it was 57. I mean, that gives you an indication of how much even Republicans had turned on Trump. And that just seems like a different universe than where we are today.

JAKE TAPPER: And the Speaker Johnson revelations, the idea that, what does she mainly say about him, that Johnson was very easily buttered up by praise from Trump.

JAMIE GANGEL: So she says that he seemed you know, he wanted Trump’s flattery. He wanted — but I think the important part about Johnson is there really is chapter and verse in here about the role that he was playing at the time. And you have to take from that her clear concern that when you get to 2024, if the Republicans are still in charge of the House, if he is still speaker, this is someone who will do what Donald Trump wants.

CHRIS WALLACE: But but the bottom line to me is the first thing that you said, which is and a lot of people say it, Liz Cheney isn’t alone, which is that she very much worries whether the system that was set up by the founders in the 1770s, the checks and balances, the Constitution, whether it will hold. The institutions, if Trump is reelected, knowing what he knows now with the attitude he has now with the “I ain’t worried about the establishment” and and showing, you know, that I’ve got people like, you know, Jim Mattis you know, that he is, as he calls it, it’s the retribution tour.

JAKE TAPPER: Yeah. Adam Kinzinger said to me one time, you know, sometimes you drive on a highway and you see a guardrail and you see where a car hit it and it’s all smashed and dented. Right? And that’s fine. It saved the car that time. But what about the next time the car hits that guardrail?

JAMIE GANGEL: That’s exactly her conclusion. It is chilling. The guardrails, in her opinion, are gone.

Watch above via CNN’s The Lead.

The post CNN’s Chris Wallace Stunned By Trump Revelations In Bombshell Cheney Book first appeared on Mediaite.

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Google Drive is a solid solution for storing important files across your devices. But if you're an iPhone user, you've been missing out on a key feature Android users have had for years: document scanning.

This simple integration makes it much easier to quickly add important documents to your Google Drive. It's something Apple offers with its own Notes app, but Google was reluctant to add to Drive's iOS version. A workaround, of course, it to scan your documents using the Notes app, save it to your photos library, then add it to Drive, but that adds a series of cumbersome steps Android users don't need to worry about.

Native document scanning is also much more convenient than simply taking a photo of the paper: Document scanners automatically crop the image so only the document itself appears and attempts to reproduce the elements of the page the same as a traditional scanner would.

Thankfully, those days are behind us. Google finally added document scanning to Drive on iOS. Now, iPhone users can add documents like receipts, bills, and notices to their Drive just as Android users can. It comes with an update to Drive that sees a few new features across platforms, but more on that in a bit.

How to scan documents in Google Drive

Whether you have an iPhone or an Android, scanning and uploading a document to Drive is easy. To start, open the app and select the Camera icon in the bottom right. (Alternatively, you can tap the (+), then hit Scan.)

Next, frame the camera view over your document. The app will intelligently scan the paper so only the document will be scanned. Tap the shutter button at the bottom of the display when ready to capture.

According to Google, this feature may take one to three days to fully roll out on iOS (I don't see it on my end as of this morning), so keep an eye out if it isn't available in your app yet.

What else is new with Google Drive

While document scanning is the big new feature on iOS, Android users can expect some additional features in Google Drive. Going forward, Drive can automatically capture documents when it detects them, so there's no need to hit the shutter button, unless you prefer to do so manually.

There's now an improved camera viewfinder to help you position the frame to get the best scan possible for your document. You can also import docs from your camera roll, and there's now a way to initialize a scan faster using a new scanner button.

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As Israel continues to grapple with the ongoing hostage situation in Gaza, new details are emerging from released hostages about the conditions the remaining hostages are being held in.

Haaretz reported on Tuesday that Esther Yahalomi, the grandmother of 12-year-old Eitan Yahalomi, said her grandson was held in a “closed room” in isolation for the first 16 days of his captivity.

“Those were very, very difficult days… just imagine what he went through there. It’s hard for me to talk about it,” Esther said of Eitan – who was released on Tuesday in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

The Haaretz report added that after those 16 days, Eitan was moved to a group of other hostages from his Kibbutz.”It was much easier for him there, his nanny from kindergarten was there… he saw a familiar face,” the grandmother told local media.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon joined Fox News on Tuesday and also offered some harrowing details from other released hostages.

“I know you have been throughout the course of things in contact with hostage families. Tell me what you can share about those conversations and those who come gone free as well, whatever you know about them,” Fox anchor Harris Faulkner asked Danon.

“So Harris it is very hard for the families and for the entire people in Israel. Because every day we get the list of the people who are supposed to be released and even now, a few hours ahead of us, we don’t know if those who were actually supposed to come to Israel will arrive,” Danon replied, adding:

So Hamas is a very vicious, cynical organization, and they use psychological terror against our people and also the families. You know, we spoke with the family that they well reunited and we heard horrible testimonials about the way they were treated. You know, every night when you see this, their release. They look human because they escort the hostages to the car over their heads glass. But that’s a show. That’s a show.

Basically, they are torturing our people. You know, I don’t want to go into details of starvation and other things we heard. I don’t think that we heard the testimony of a 12-year-old that he was beaten up every day. They made him see videos of the massacre of October 7th. So we know with whom we are dealing. That’s why we are committed to continue with the war efforts until we eradicate evil. You know, we’re doing our best to rescue as many hostages as we can, but we never forget that the goal of the war is to eliminate Hamas. And we intend to do it.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News.

The post Hamas Kept 12-Year-Old Israeli Hostage In Solitary Confinement For 16 Days, Grandmother Says first appeared on Mediaite.

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Trying to stay on top of all the latest podcasts can feel like you’re drinking from a fire hose. Unless it’s your full-time job to listen, you probably completely missed something great. Luckily for you, it's my full-time job to listen to podcasts; I’ve logged hours sampling nearly every release I could get my hands on. I’m back to report that it was a great year in podcasts. This list could have included more than 100 shows. But I’ve narrowed this list down to the 25 best shows that came out in 2023, which should give you enough to binge until Lifehacker makes this list again in 2024. Happy listening.

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Louder Than a Riot

It was hip hop’s 50th birthday this year, and we celebrated a genre of music that has allowed  artists to express frustration with oppression and feeling unheard. But for Black women, queer people, and others on the margins, that oppression has been coming from inside the house. The second season of Louder Than A Riot, hosted by NPR Music's Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael, examines how hip-hop marginalizes the people who built it, and how misogynoir — the specific racist misogyny against Black women — is baked into its very culture. Louder Than A Riot’s harsh and beautiful storytelling touches upon harassment, queerphobia, and assault. Interviews with Rico Nasty, Saucy Santana, and Megan Thee Stallion give a pulse to this series that makes it a total mic drop. 

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The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks

Jar Jar Binks from 1999’s Star Wars: The Phantom Menace may have been named "the most annoying movie character of all time" by Complex, but behind the character was a real person: Ahmed Best, a Bronx-born actor who got his start in the theatrical production of STOMP. On The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks, Dylan Marron examines how an online harassment campaign against Binks impacted Best, and on a deeper level, how the words we use online can have real impact on the humans behind the screen. Don’t worry if you have no idea who Jar Jar is. Dylan makes Redemption feel friendly and necessary to fans and newbies alike.  

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You Didn’t See Nothin

For You Didn’t See Nothin, Yohance Lacour brings us to a 1997 hate crime that took place on the South Side of Chicago and changed his life forever. The show starts with the day of the attack when Yohance was in his early 20s, writing plays, selling weed, and living with his dad when the terrible media coverage of the attack drove him to take things in his own hands, working with a local neighborhood newspaper to investigate the crime. After a 10-year stint in prison, Yohance is back in Chicago, bringing a new perspective with archival audio and new interviews with those involved. Yohance tells this story in an animated, poetic way that makes you feel like you’re inside a pop-up book. The story is a mix of true-crime investigation, personal memoir, and bold narration. 

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Search Engine

Those of you who have been missing PJ Vogt after his departure from the popular podcast Reply All can take a breath of relief—PJ’s new show Search Engine delivers all of the things they love about Reply All—internet mysteries, boots-on-the-ground reporting, and PJ’s sense of humor and famous chuckle. He’s searching for answers to things you can’t just look up on the internet. Like how sad monkeys are at the zoo, whether or not we should be drinking airplane coffee, and why people don’t eat each other. Search Engine is inquisitive and expertly produced, and will answer questions about humans you didn’t even know you had. 

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Free From Desire

There isn’t a ton of content about asexuality out there, and what’s there is often incorrect. That always bothered Aline Laurent-Mayard, who spent their teenage years feeling alienated from peers because of their own lack of interest in sex. Free From Desire, which won Tribeca's Narrative Nonfiction Audio Storytelling Award, is an elegant reflection on Aline’s understanding of their asexuality and becoming a single parent. In a storytelling style that feels like a private whisper, Aline opens up about growing up in Paris, The City of Love, in the '90s, feeling free from desire. They talk to experts, sociologists, and friends about our culture’s obsession with coupling in the most traditional sense. Free From Desire gets asexuality right in a way that’s driven by personal experience, making it triumphant, graceful, and intimate. 

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Foretold

At 17, Paulina Stevens’ cards had been dealt for her. Growing up in an insular Romani American family, she had left school, married, started growing her family, and joined her in-laws in the family fortune-telling business. Foretold is what happens when Paulina risks everything to step away and chart her own path. Reported by Faith Pinho, who was approached by Paulina years ago as a rookie reporter, Foretold corrects Romani stereotypes with empathy while honestly reporting on the cultural problems that drove Paulina away. It’ll have you on the edge of your seat, rooting Paulina on and wondering how she’ll break free without losing her children. Enter through the neon “Psychic Readings” sign and emerge forever changed.

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Let’s Make a Horror

On the Let’s Make… series, Ryan Beil, Maddy Kelly, and Mark Chavez spend entire seasons writing screenplays for a film, interviewing other directors, writers, and experts in the genre along the way. Season one was all about writing a sci-fi screenplay, season two was all about writing a rom-com screenplay, and the newest season, Let’s Make a Horror, is all about writing a horror screenplay. Just like the previous seasons, they’re talking to film- and spook-makers to figure out what goes into a good horror film, but this time, they’re actually going to film it. Another twist: They don’t know anything about horror, and some of them (Maddy) don’t even like it. They kick things off by talking to the director of The Blair Witch Project, Eduardo Sánchez and trying to pinpoint what makes them scared. (Some things on the list…horses, “being alone in a field and someone comes running,” kidnappings, and being buried alive.)

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WILD

Hosted by Erick Galindo, season one of WILD was a time capsule of the kinds of moments captured during a global pandemic that left a lot of us growing up again while stuck at home for more than a year. Season two brought on Megan Tan for a fictional love story inspired by the wildest thing Erick once did for love. This show starts out in Los Angeles and has a strong sense of place as it takes you on a road trip with a woman who stole Erick’s heart. He’s narrating the story to Megan the whole time, and it feels like you’re at a diner, hearing the story shared over brunch with friends. You’ll have to listen to find out if Cupid’s arrow hits—the answer will have your mind blurring the lines between fact and fiction, and will leave you feeling optimistic about love. 

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Classy

Jonathan Menjivar was a blue-collar Latino kid who grew up in a working-class family, and found himself as an adult in public radio, alongside people with much different backgrounds. (Like, ahem, Terry Gross.) Classy is a podcast that lets us hear him grapple with the dissonance of living in a world of oysters and cashmere, while remembering a past of food stamps and factories. He’s asking himself, “Am I a class-hole?” Episodes feature intimate looks into Jonathan’s life and background, and explorations into budget shopping and how the military preys on poor people. Every single episode of Classy feels like the best of the series. It’s thoughtful, probing, and personal, forcing us to consider how class shapes our perspectives of the world and how we belong in it.

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Weight for It

Ronald Young Jr. is fat, and on his podcast Weight for It, which was selected in Tribeca’s 2023 Official Audio Storytelling Series, he’s talking about it. Weight for It is part narrative storytelling, part personal memoir—and it gets extremely personal. Every episode is a deep exploration into his own desirability, his shame, and his relationships. He even brings his mic into the doctor’s office, so we can hear the completely insane way doctors often treat fat people.

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Keys to the Kingdom

I was so excited to listen to Keys to the Kingdom that I was nervous to press play. On it, audio power couple Matt Gourley and Amanda Lund take us backstage at our favorite theme parks to hear from surviving characters, performers, and fans, getting the juicy details about what it’s really like, sans pixie dust—perhaps what places like the Disney headquarters doesn’t want us to know. (In fact, this seems like a pretty gutsy move. I think many people are afraid to spoil the magic of Disney—they have been warned not to, with threat of lawsuits.) Matt and Amanda interview ex cast members (Disney lingo for anyone who works there) Deep Skirt, White Glove 1, White Glove 2, and Scott Aukerman about the strange things they've had to do to please guests and stay sane. (If a dad is getting handsy, princesses are instructed to hold their arm up and say, “let me pose you like a prince!” which means, get your dirty hands off me your family is watching. This also works if a kid is barfing on your costume or covered in ice cream.) Episode one covers princesses, episode two is dedicated to the cast members in the fuzzy costumes. Matt and Amanda are delightful, funny, and they are not holding back.

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Beef

It was so easy to get hooked on Bridget Todd’s series about the rivalry between names like Adidas and Puma, Penthouse and Playboy, and Dear Abby and Ann Landers. Beef feels like a gossipy version of Business Wars—it’s full of tales about how these legends went to battle only to learn that having a little friendly competition is what often drives us to success. Bridget Todd (There Are No Girls on the Internet) reels us in with storytelling and interviews that map out the history of how legends pushed each other to greatness, and all the petty stuff that happened on the way.

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The Coldest Case in Laramie

From the people who brought us Serial (Serial Productions and The New York Times) comes The Coldest Case in Laramie, a story about an unsolved murder that took place 40 years ago in Laramie, Wyoming. It’s hosted by Kim Barker, a journalist who was in high school when the murder occurred. This isn’t so much a whodunnit—there are lots of conflicting versions and unresolved conclusions—but more of a story about the inherent nature of true crime and journalism, how stories are reported, and how we decide to tell them. There is a lengthy segment of interrogation that will freeze you in your seat. When I finished it, I went back to episode one again and re-listened, because the twist made me reevaluate everything I just heard. 

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The Retrievals

The Retrievals is a roller coaster of a story that will strap you in and have you engrossed from the very beginning. It takes us to 2020 to a fertility clinic at Yale, where a nurse was secretly replacing vials of a pain-reducing opioid with saline solution, causing the women to go through painful procedures without any relief. And no one believed them. Poignant, challenging, and thought-provoking, it expertly tells not just a jaw-dropping story, but shares the voices of the women impacted—the very voices that were quieted in the first place. The Retrievals’ excellent reporting and production makes this urgent story that needs to be told one that is so gripping you won't mind listening, even though there are parts that are difficult to hear.

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Eerie 

Never Told is a show that passes different writers the mic to share strange, surprising, secret, or shameful stories they’ve never heard before. Never Told’s spinoff show Eerie is an eight-episode anthology series of original horror stories, presented by a different writer every time. Listening to it is like pulling out a random book in a spooky, web-covered (possibly hidden) bookshelf—you don’t know what you’re going to get. (The first one was about a researcher alone in the Arctic … but what happened to her crew?) The Eerie team is trying really hard to scare you. (And I think they will.)

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Murder on Sex Island

Jo Firestone had some time on her hands (thanks to the writer’s strike) so she wrote a book called Murder on Sex Island, which you can order now—and you can also hear her read it to you on her podcast, also called Murder on Sex Island. A reality TV show’s contestant goes missing, which inspires detective (and obsessive fan of the show) Luella van Horn to go undercover on the show to find him, but she has her own secret to hide. It’s not just packed with hilarious details—the plot is well-crafted. I’d say it's a perfect bedtime story, but you’ll probably be laughing too hard to fall asleep. If you love comedy and audiobooks, this one’s for you.

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Hooked on Freddie

In 1987 in the British seaside town of Amble, a bottlenose dolphin named Freddie became a fixture in the harbor, and a local celebrity. This bothered Alan Cooper, an animal rights activist committed to freeing captive dolphins, who had been beefing with Peter Bloom, the owner of the nearby Flamingo Land dolphinarium. The podcast Hooked On Freddie is about a particular incident, when Cooper was swimming with Freddie, and Bloom told police that Cooper was “wanking Freddie off,” launching tabloid rumors, a trial, and a complete unraveling of Cooper’s reputation (despite the fact he was found not guilty). The story is reported by Becky Milligan, a reporter who was there and remembers everything. This is probably the only dolphin sex scandal you’ve ever heard, and it’s definitely the best.

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Say More with Dr? Sheila

That “?” after Dr isn’t a typo—on Say More with Dr? Sheila, Sheila isn’t a doctor: She’s a questionably qualified couples therapist played by Amy Poehler. (“For legal reasons, ‘Dr?’ must be said in the form of a question.”) And Say More with Dr? Sheila is an improvised comedy show where Dr? Sheila lets you be a fly on the wall in her couples therapy sessions. Think Where Should We Begin? with zero expertise. Dr? Sheila strives to improve the relationships between her clients, but only makes them worse. (In episode one, she plays a round of OJ-inspired “if you did it” about cheating, which gets “Beth” and “Ryan” revealing detailed accounts of the cheating that they definitely did do.) Huge names like Fred Armisen, Kate Berlant, Rachel Dratch, John Early, Tina Fey, Ana Gasteyer, Ilana Glazer, Abbi Jacobson, Jason Mantzoukas, Maya Rudolph, and Paul Scheer play the couples.

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Grapevine

Southlake was a wonderful show about a controversy in a Texas town that sparked a national crusade against critical race theory when a video surfaced in 2018 showing Southlake high school students chanting the n-word. It was a sort-of prequel to NBC’s latest. Grapevine takes place in a neighboring Texas town, where a mother of a trans student accused a teacher of grooming her daughter. Mike Hixenbaugh and Antonia Hylton go to the school to look into this mother’s allegations to find a story of a transgender child who just wants to be herself, a mom (her own) hellbent on putting God first, the teacher who kicked this whole thing off by allowing her students to take home copies of a book called The Prince and the Dressmaker, and it’s all somehow tied to a discount phone company? Like Southlake, it’s a high-stakes personal story that uncovers something bigger—this time, a fringe religious movement set on making America great again according to their version of biblical values.

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Dear Alana,

Alana Chen was a high-achieving, friendly, smart and athletic 14-year-old who had an unusual obsession with the Catholic faith—she really wanted to become a nun. At 14, she confessed to a trusted priest that she was attracted to women. That priest convinced her not to tell her family, and for seven years, Alana secretly sought pastoral counsel and conversion therapy. When she was 24, Alana died by suicide, and her family was left with so many questions. So was Simon Kent Fung, the host of Dear Alana, who reached out to Alana’s family immediately when he heard her story, which deeply resonated with him. He, too, sought out conversion therapy for nearly a decade in his efforts to become a priest. He teams up with the Chens, who have two dozen of Alana’s personal journals, to learn about the things that went on behind closed doors and the forces that drove a girl who needed real help to the edge. 

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The Puzzler

A new daily podcast has come to town, and it has such a great premise I can’t believe this type of show isn’t already all over the place. The Puzzler is a short (and daily!) trivia quiz (it’s also a book) hosted by A.J. Jacobs. With fun guests such as Roy Wood Jr., Michael Ian Black, Mo Rocca, and Chuck Bryant, it’s truly something you can look forward to when your alarm starts blaring in the morning. It’s a quick hit of brain caffeine and an absolute delight. 

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ODB: A Son Unique

The first episode of ODB: A Son Unique had my jaw on the floor. The podcast tells the story of Old Dirty Bastard (aka Russell Tyrone Jones aka Ason Unique) the gigantic footprint he made in hip hop, his high highs and tragic lows. Host photographer Khalik Allah has a special tie to ODB—it’s a story about Wu Tang lifting a car off a little girl. It’s a great opener to a lively series about a complicated person who wasn’t taken seriously enough, but was extreme, a jokester, a man who loved babies and once jumped off a building to get a kiss, and lived and breathed the Five Percent Nation. This show is packed with great stories, there is no sagginess—I was skipping back to relisten. You get a lot of hip hop history and the story of Wu Tang, too. ODB is worthy of this thoughtful treatment that has both devastating and joyful moments.

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Ghost Story

Tristan Redman is a serious journalist who doesn’t believe in ghosts … except for the one who may have been living in his childhood bedroom when he was a teenager. Fast forward a decade or so: Tristan is married and discovers that his wife Kate’s great-grandmother Naomi Dancy happens to have lived (and was murdered) next door in 1937. For his podcast Ghost Story, Tristan has started gathering stories from other people who have lived in his old bedroom who report seeing the ghost of a faceless woman. Naomi was stabbed in the eyes, allegedly by her brother, which would make this a grisly true crime story. But Tristan believes the faceless woman is Naomi, and that she has a message: It wasn’t her brother who killed her, but her husband. And so the true crime story turns into a ghost story, or maybe it’s the other way around. Episodes two and three begin to take a darker turn. 

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The Heist

The award-winning podcast The Heist is dedicated to exposing systemic injustices often hidden from the United States public’s eyes. (Season two, "The Wealth Vortex," won the 2023 Excellence in Financial Journalism Award for best audio reporting and was nominated for an Ambie.) It’s back with a single, very personal story that focuses on America’s Black farmers and ranchers, and how what the U.S. government stole from them. (And continue to steal.) Host April Simpson reports and shares personal conversations with Nate Bradford, a farmer impacted by this heist. You feel like you’re sitting in her pocket as she travels to his home and hear real talk about the hardships of being a Black farmer in America. It’s enraging and eye-opening. The Heist perfectly combines meticulous reporting with deeply personal narrative, to blow open government secrets with a human aspect that makes us feel the pain.

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The Girlfriends

In 1995, Carole Fisher was looking for love, so her friend Mindy introduced to Bob Bierenbaum, a Jewish plastic surgeon who flew planes and spoke several languages. (Mindy dated him and was passing him along.) He was “perfect on paper,” a fact that allowed Carole to dismiss several red flags—like telling her that his ex-wife Gail was missing and presumed dead. Carol and Mindy start talking about him and along with a bunch of other girlfriends, start this sort of armchair detective club where they attempt to track down what happened to Gail. It was a joke. But the dots start to connect. The Girlfriends is true crime at its best, a chorus of women’s voices joined together to uncover a truth the system couldn’t. 

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This Cyber Monday, you can buy a great Windows laptop with a fast processor, solid RAM, and a great screen for under $500. Many online retailers are giving deep discounts for good mid-range computers, and the following are among some of the best:

The best Windows laptop Cyber Monday sales under $400

I picked out deals that offer a powerful processor in the class of Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 so you don’t need to worry about performance from a lower-end chip. Integrated graphics will do just fine, and I'm highlighting laptops with good screens, most of them featuring full 1080p resolution.

• Asus Vivobook 14 (14” FHD (1920 x 1080) Display, Intel Core i5-1235U CPU, Intel Iris Xᵉ Graphics, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Windows 11 Home): $399.99 on Amazon (from $479.99)

• Acer Aspire 3 (14.0" Full HD IPS Display | AMD Ryzen 5 7520U Quad-Core Processor | AMD Radeon Graphics | 8GB LPDDR5 | 512GB NVMe SSD): $349.99 on Amazon (from $449.99)

• HP 15-inch Laptop (HD Display, AMD Ryzen 5 5500U, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, AMD Radeon Graphics): $339.99 on Amazon (from $499)

• Dell Inspiron 15 3520 Touch Laptop (Intel Core i5 - 8GB Memory - 256GB SSD): $379.99 on Best Buy (from $599.99)

The best budget Windows laptop Cyber Monday sales under $500

If you’re willing to spend around $500 for a new Windows 11 laptop, there are some great ones from the higher end of the spectrum that are discounted to just around your price range. The higher price comes with some niceties like 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. The processors here are also upgraded, and in many models, you’ll find touchscreens with vivid colors. If you’re looking for a solid work laptop that’s easy to carry around and is nice to use, you can’t go wrong with any of these picks.

• Acer Aspire 5 (Intel Core i5 13th Gen 1335U (1.30GHz) 16GB LPDDR5 Memory 512 GB PCIe SSD Intel Iris Xe Graphics 15.6" Windows 11 Home): $499.99 on Newegg (from $699.99)

• Asus Vivobook 16 (WUXGA (1920 x 1200) 16:10 Display, Intel Core i5-1235U CPU, Intel UHD Graphics, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Windows 11 Home): $424.99 on Amazon (from $549.99)

• MSI Modern 14 (14-inch (1920 x 1080) display, AMD Ryzen 7 7730U 8-core GPU, 16GB of RAM, AMD Radeon Graphics, 512GB SSD): $469.00 on Walmart (from $549)

• HP Envy 2-in-1 14-inch (Full HD Touch-Screen Laptop - Intel Core i5 - 8GB Memory - 512GB SSD): $499.99 on Best Buy (from $849.99)

If you're willing to spend just a bit more, the Dell Inspiron 15 (Intel Core i5-1335U, 15.6-inch FHD 120Hz Display, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 512GB SSD, Intel Iris Xe Graphics, Windows 11 Home) is just $532.49 on Amazon (from $649.99).

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Alyssa Farah Griffin called out international women’s groups on Monday’s episode of The View for remaining silent on Hamas’ use of rape against Israeli women as a tactic of war.

Israel has been investigating sexual violence against civilians during the Oct. 7th Hamas terrorist attacks that killed 1,200. CNN reported, “Women and girls caught in the rampage were brutalized sexually, as well as physically tortured and killed, witnesses to the aftermath say.”

“I am still devastated — we’re two months since this war has been underway — by silence from women’s groups in this country about rape being used as an act of war in this attack,” Griffin said. She continued:

The fact that sexual violence was used against Israeli women and the major women’s groups in this country have not come out and denounced it. This weekend, Sheryl Sandberg put out a gripping video calling for it. That violates every rule of warfare. It is the height of immorality and the fact that the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Women Empowerment has been silent, the U.N. Committee on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women has been silent, and the international MeToo movement has been silent.

Sandberg, the founder of LeanIn.org and former COO of Meta, authored an emotional op-ed for CNN last week, where she declared, “The silence on these war crimes is deafening.”

“Perhaps the reason they’ve been silent is for the same reason that you just described,” said Whoopi Goldberg, referring to Griffin’s earlier statement that the released captives will be careful about criticizing Hamas because “they don’t want their loved ones who are still in captivity to be tortured.”

Goldberg continued:

Well, they don’t want to exacerbate. Listen, I know that this is really hard for people to sit still with. So, right now, we’re glad people are coming out, and that’s what we’re going to keep talking about because we want to encourage — you know, the bottom line truly is this: You don’t have a choice; you have to end this because at some point, it’s going to dawn on everybody there that no one’s leaving. No one’s leaving the land so the question has to become, how do we live together on this land? That is all that people should be thinking about so that this does not continue to happen.

Watch the clip above via The View on ABC.

The post The View’s Alyssa Farah Griffin Blasts Women’s Groups For Silence on Hamas Sex Crimes first appeared on Mediaite.

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Internal tensions have risen at the Anti-Defamation League after CEO Jonathan Greenblatt supported Elon Musk’s proposal to ban the phrases “from the river to the sea” and “decolonization” on Twitter/X, according to a new report by Rolling Stone detailing that two ADL board members have threatened to quit as a result.

Musk said in mid-November he would ban the phrases from his platform and any others that “necessarily imply genocide.” “Clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of service and will result in suspension,” Musk wrote at the time, arguing that the phrases call for the elimination of Israel.

Rolling Stone‘s EJ Dickson spoke with two current ADL advisory board members, Eli Pariser and Peter Fox, who expressed serious concerns about Greenblatt’s recent embrace of Musk, whom he’d very recently condemned for his highly publicized agreement with a tweet supporting the anti-Semitic “Great Replacement Theory.” That same tweet earned Musk a condemnation from the White House; it was one of the most blatant examples of Musk’s public embrace of anti-Semitic rhetoric.

But Dickson reported that even while Musk seemingly agreed that some pro-Palestinian language could be seen as anti-Semitic, Greenblatt’s support of the conspiracy theorist while simultaneously supporting the Israeli government’s military response to the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks “are eroding the organization’s credibility.”

Pariser, who is a founder of MoveOn.org and serves on ADL’s tech advisory board, told Dickson: “Censorship of these phrases will not reduce antisemitism, Especially while Musk himself, one of the most popular users on the platform, continues to engage with and boost it.” He also said he intended to “step down from the Tech Advisory Board” unless the ADL “acknowledged it had made a big mistake and course corrected.”

Fox, who serves on ADL’s NextGen board, said that Greenblatt’s sudden support of Musk after the latter expressed agreement with the Great Replacement Theory “sort of calls back the memory of why this organization was founded in the first place,” which was in response to the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was falsely accused of murder and found guilty after a trial “defined by anti-Semitism.” Fox added: “I think there is a fine line between honoring the core mission of the organization and engaging in public diplomacy.”

Fox did not explicitly threaten to quit the board, but in a November 18 op-ed on Forward that was directly addressed to Greenblatt, he stated that “Musk consistently violates the basic tenets of decency, integrity and respect that ADL stands for. There comes a time when it’s just not worth it. And acquiescing to Elon Musk’s ego is certainly not worth compromising the organization’s integrity for.”

Other board members to whom Dickson spoke expressed support for Greenblatt, and Fox told Dickson that he was “lambasted” by other NextGen board members for not going through “the proper channels” when he wrote his op-ed.

The post ADL Board Members Threaten to Quit Over Jonathan Greenblatt Backing Elon Musk’s ‘Censorship’ on X first appeared on Mediaite.

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White House spox Andrew Bates joined a deputy press secretary and a left-wing social media video influencer in bashing Fox News reporter Lucas Tomlinson over describing his own question for President Joe Biden as one asked by “a reporter” in Nantucket.

On Saturday, Tomlinson was one of the reporters who shouted questions to President Biden, who was out shopping with his family over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Tomlinson asked “Mr. President, are you too old to be running for president?”

Biden replied, “That’s stupid.”

But when he shared the clip on social media, Tomlinson treated the question the way one would had it been asked by someone else.

Prior to that, on Saturday’s The Big Weekend Show on Fox News, he and the show hosts attributed that question to Tomlinson.

Also on Saturday’s Fox News Live the attribution was clear.

That was also true on Fox and Friends Sunday.

However, on Fox News Sunday — which airs on Fox broadcast channels before it runs on cable, Tomlinson did not say it was his question, instead claiming that Biden is facing those questions “even here in Nantucket.”

When Tomlinson tweeted about it on X (formerly Twitter) Sunday, he inexplicably referred to himself as “a reporter.”

While shopping in Nantucket, President Biden was asked by a reporter if he is too old to run for re-election. “That’s stupid,” he replied.

— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) November 26, 2023

That naturally brought a slew of sarcastic and mocking responses, including one from Bates.

.@LucasFoxNews, are you able to speculate on whose voice that is shouting? It sounds familiar to me but I'm having difficulty placing it. https://t.co/mQv0Yb9trH

— Andrew Bates (@AndrewJBates46) November 26, 2023

Principal Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton said “lol” in her retweeet.

Lol that reporter was… you https://t.co/bVYl1by4Qw

— Olivia Dalton (@ODalton46) November 26, 2023

Video influencer Aaron Rupar, “whose tweet of the Fox News Sunday clip was retweeted by Bates, called it “The epitome of astroturfing a political attack,” despite the previous attributions from Fox News and the fact that the age issue is a major topic already, a concern from within Biden’s own party, and a major feature of most 2024 presidential polling for months.

Amazing: Fox News correspondent @LucasFoxNews reports that Biden "continues to face questions about his age, even here in Nantucket" — citing nothing more than a question @LucasFoxNews himself shouted at Biden on Saturday. The epitome of astroturfing a political attack. pic.twitter.com/kljfvi9pGa

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 26, 2023

There were many other responses, with Keith Olbermann naturally going the most over the top.

if you asked the question why not just say “i asked the president”?

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) November 26, 2023

In the lead in to that cut, the reporter says that Biden “continues to face questions about his age, even here in Nantucket.”

He dishonestly fails to mention that it was a single question “here in Nantucket” and it was asked by the reporter himself. https://t.co/USisFAIgDj

— S.V. Dáte (@svdate) November 26, 2023

This is the first story made up by @foxnews in NEARLY FOUR DAYS@LucasFoxNews is quoting himself here. He also reported "Biden was being questioned about his age" when he was the only one who asked

Lucas is not a professional and not honest. Let's run him out of the industry. https://t.co/LtTLg1Tn6w

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) November 26, 2023

Why Tomlinson’s ownership of the question was left out in the Fox News Sunday report and seemingly deliberately obfuscated on the reporter’s own social media post remains unclear. Tomlinson has not replied to the critics on X, and Fox News did not offer Mediaite a comment on the clip or that tweet prior to publication of this article.

Watch the clips above via Fox News.

The post White House Has Multiple Snarky Responses to Fox Reporter Over Who Exactly Asked Biden If He’s ‘Too Old’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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Manchester United’s Alejandro Garnacho scored a stunning goal on Sunday at Everton, sending the announcers (and social media) into overdrive and prompting one announcer to say even the opposing fans at the Premier League match should applaud it (and at least one opposing player actually did.)

NBC Sports shared the incredible goal and amazed reactions shortly after the moment play-by-play announcer Peter Drury called “special beyond special” happened.

“How has he plucked that one out,” exclaimed a stunned Drury.

“Well the move was good enough for the finish,” replied announcer Lee Dixon. “Every one of these Everton fans — not going to happen — should be applauding that. Because they won’t see a goal at Goodison Park like that for a long, long time.”

“That is world class, absolutely world class,” said Dixon.

But the broadcasters weren’t the only ones besides themselves. On X (formerly Twitter), the reactions were equally as hype – including some praise for the announcers. Even Everton’s James Tarkowski calling the goal “an absolute worldie.”

"Sometimes you hold your hands up and say it's just an absolute worldie."

James Tarkowski admits how good Alejandro Garnacho's goal was! pic.twitter.com/zoC1nIp8wZ

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) November 26, 2023

STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND WATCH THIS RIGHT NOW. GARNACHO WITH AN ALL-TIME HIT. pic.twitter.com/OlDudyIq0k

— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) November 26, 2023

ALEJANDRO GARNACHO BICYCLE KICK AND THE SIUUU CELEBRATION!

@USANetwork pic.twitter.com/S0AnaGN7cq

— NBC Sports Soccer (@NBCSportsSoccer) November 26, 2023

Alejandro Garnacho what an UNBELIEVABLE goal pic.twitter.com/aQ72AmrA0T

— Stretford Paddock (@StretfordPaddck) November 26, 2023

Alejandro Garnacho’s goal with Peter Drury’s commentary is a masterpiece: pic.twitter.com/3auyN91qRz

— luka dončić (@idfwkumille) November 26, 2023

Alejandro Garnacho's bicycle kick against Everton was almost identical to Wayne Rooney's iconic bicycle kick against Man City.

He hit Cristiano Ronaldo's 'SIUUU' and 'I'm here' celebrations after scoring.

He's United through and through pic.twitter.com/dzWqdocnce

— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) November 26, 2023

i needed that Garnacho goal with Peter Drury’s commentary man pic.twitter.com/umvGnWPvxS

— luka dončić (@idfwkumille) November 26, 2023

Watch the clips above via NBC Sports, USA Network, and Premier League.

The post WATCH: Manchester United Scores Goal So Spectacular The Announcer Says Opposing Fans Should Applaud It first appeared on Mediaite.

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President Joe Biden privately apologized to a group of prominent Muslim Americans after he dismissed the death toll provided by Gaza’s Ministry of Health, according to a new report.

During a press conference at the White House on October 25th, Biden voiced skepticism regarding the number of dead provided by the Gaza’s health office, adding, “I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed.”

His comments sparked fury from prominent Muslim Americans who met with the president the following day, according to The Washington Post. The five representatives of the American Muslim community criticized Biden for being insensitive, while others retold stories of civilians losing dozens of family members in Gaza.

The numbers from the Ministry of Health have come under question given it is part of the Hamas government in Gaza. That said, the numbers are believed to be accurate — a Washington Post fact-check of Biden at the time concluded the president showed “excessive skepticism” of the numbers put out by the Health Ministry, and that his dismissal was “remarkably uninformed by history and precedent.”

Currently the Ministry of Health says more than 14,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel declared war. The New York Times reported over the weekend that some 10,000 of those are believed to be women and children.

Since the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7 — during which hundreds of hostages were taken including a 3-year-old American who was released Sunday after seeing her parents murdered and turning 4-years-old in captivity — Biden has vowed to support the country with military and financial aid while also working with officials on both sides to negotiate a peaceful transfer of those hostages and prisoners and see Hamas unseated as the political force in power in Gaza.

During the meeting reported by the Washington Post, which scheduled for 30 minutes lasted more than an hour, Biden reportedly apologized for his comments.

“I’m sorry. I’m disappointed in myself,” Biden said to the group before he ended up hugging one of the participants. “I will do better.”

Biden officials have been meeting with staffers, political appointees, and outside groups to gauge their reactions to the administration’s stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Media pundits and political consultants have claimed that the conflict may endanger Biden’s 2024 electoral prospects.

The post Biden Privately Confronted By Prominent Muslim Americans After Dismissing Gaza Death Toll: ‘I’m Disappointed In Myself’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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Finishing a basement is one of the most popular home renovation projects for some very good reasons. First and foremost, it’s one of the best ways to spend your money, with a return on investment (ROI) over 85%. Second, it’s one of the most effective ways to add living space—and thus equity—to your home.

When planning to finish a basement, a lot of folks decide to put a bathroom down there, and then discover that this can be a very complicated add-on. That’s due to two reasons: One, you might have to break a concrete slab to run plumbing under the floor, and two, your basement floor is probably below the sewer lines that service the house. Most toilets rely on gravity assisted by water pressure to get your waste into the sewer, and that just won’t work if the waste has to go uphill.

Don’t despair, though—you still have options.

Toiletry

If a toilet is going to sit below the sewer line, you have two basic options to consider: A toilet assisted by some sort of pump, or a composting toilet. Composting toilets collect the waste in a storage system, which then has to be emptied on a regular basis. These toilets are environmentally friendly and often don’t require any electricity or plumbing hookups at all, but keeping track of how, uh, full they are and emptying out the compost can be a pain.

A more convenient option is a pump-assisted toilet. Ejector pump toilets use a pump similar to a sump pump to push waste into the sewer line, but these usually require breaking the slab and installing the pump system under the basement floor, which adds to the expense and difficulty of the renovation. A better option is what’s known as an "upflush" toilet, which has a pump attached that moves the waste to the sewer line. It’s a project that you can even do yourself if you’re moderately comfortable with some basic plumbing work.

Benefits of upflush toilets

There are several reasons why an upflush toilet is often the best option for a basement renovation:

• Easier installation. You won’t need to break up your basement floor or dig down, and you won’t need to run any plumbing. All that needs to be done is the installation of the drain line into the sewer pipe, and the installation of a vent pipe.

• Operation. Even if a gravity toilet is an option in your basement, being so low often means more frequent backups and drainage problems. Any time the sewer lines get clogged up after storms, for example, you might have a problem flushing your toilet. An upflush toilet’s pump can overcome many of those problems.

• Cost. Upflush toilets are more expensive than gravity toilets because of the extra apparatus involved, but since they sit entirely above ground, they often cost less to install overall.

• Familiarity. Unlike a composting toilet, from a user perspective, an upflush toilet operates exactly the same as a traditional toilet. If you encase the pump system behind a wall, your guests might not even notice a difference.

Some upflush toilets include a "macerating" feature that grinds up the waste before pumping it out, reducing the chances of clogs and making the pumping action more efficient.

Considerations

Upflush toilets solve a very specific problem in locations where a traditional gravity toilet won’t work well. But there are a few things to consider:

• Higher per-unit cost. While upflush toilets may be cheaper overall when you consider the plumbing work you didn’t have to do, they are usually more expensive than traditional toilets.

• Electricity. You’ll need a GFCI plug for your upflush toilet. If there isn’t one located in the area where you want to install the toilet, you’ll need to have one wired up. Most upflush toilets don’t need a dedicated circuit, however. This also means that during power outages your upflush toilet won’t work, while gravity toilets will.

• Maintenance. Upflush toilet pumps need to be maintained like any other motorized piece of equipment. Their tanks also need to be de-scaled every now and then to remove mineral build-up that can compromise performance and cause bad odors.

If you want to enjoy the convenience of a bathroom in your finished basement—or any area of your house that sits below the sewer lines—an upflush toilet is your best option.

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