When I say “floater,” you say…
AMC / Via buzzfeed.com
Erin La Rosa for BuzzFeed
AMC
Who’ll be there for you when the rain starts to pour?
Lightsabers! Ewoks! Fireworks!
That's after unveiling new behind-the-scenes footage from the movie, and Harrison Ford's first public appearance since his plane accident, btw.
Richard Shotwell / AP
Michael Buckner / Getty Images
Adam B. Vary / BuzzFeed News
It’s RAVIE!
<3
The Disney Channel
The Disney Channel
The Disney Channel
The Disney Channel / Via giphy.com
So fetch.
Litchfield doesn’t mess around.
Samantha Gardella
Photo courtesy of Samantha Gardella
Photo courtesy of Samantha Gardella
Photo courtesy of Samantha Gardella
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation has been ordered to stay away from new wind projects.
Robert Cianflone / Getty Images
Speaking to Sky News on Sunday morning, trade minister Andrew Robb said the directive was part of a "previous arrangement" struck with the Senate cross-benchers in order to pass changes to the renewable energy target (RET).
It was "part of the deal" that the CEFC would focus on emerging technologies rather than mature technologies like wind, Robb said. "[Wind] can source funds in the commercial market."
Environment minister Greg Hunt agreed with Robb, saying on Twitter that he has been "repeatedly critical" of the CEFC funding wind projects instead of focusing on solar and emerging technologies.
"Our policy is to abolish the CEFC but in the meantime it should focus on solar and emerging technologies as was originally intended," he wrote.
The Fairfax Media report alleges Hunt, who negotiated the RET deal with Senate cross-benchers, was unaware of the CEFC letter.
However, on Sunday morning, Hunt said on Twitter that he did know about the letter and supported its content.
Happy birthday to you. And you. And you.
BuzzFeed Video / Via youtu.be
“You’re invited” to a crazy, hot mess of an evening.
Dualstar Entertainment / Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
*Eye roll*
ABC
Warner Bros.
Spooky.
So much to see and feel here.
Facebook: HalfABulldogTwiceTheLove
Facebook: HalfABulldogTwiceTheLove
He also has a condition called swimmer puppy syndrome. The condition basically spreads the legs out, flattens the chest, and leaves an animal unable to stand normally, putting a lot of pressure on internal organs.
Facebook: HalfABulldogTwiceTheLove
Facebook: HalfABulldogTwiceTheLove
Your love for him is justified.
HBO / Via giphy.com
HBO
HBO / Via giphy.com
HBO / Via giphy.com
When dad passed away, there was only one option.
BuzzFeedVideo / Via youtu.be
*Weeps for the opportunity to drink with John Barrowman.*
Literal bosses.
The only thing worth braving bad L.A. traffic for? Really good food.
Why Go?: Kogi proves that good food can come on a $2.29 budget.
Local Tip: To locate their daily whereabouts, check their website or Twitter.
Must Try: Blue Moon Mulita — because melted cheese, onions, salsa, and chicken smashed between two toasted tortillas is always a good idea.
Kogi BBQ / Via Flickr: kogibbq
Why Go?: Papa Cristo himself actually mans the counter and serves you fresh Greek food.
Local Tip: Head here on Thursdays for live music and belly dancing.
Must Try: Taramosalata, because who doesn’t want to try Greek caviar?
Franklin / Via dinedelish.com
Why Go?: All the fresh produce you could ever ask for.
Local Tip: Avoid paying the high prices of the parking garages in the area and park at the garage on 4th St. and Civic Center Drive.
Must Try: Harry’s Berries because it will be the best (strawberry) you’ve ever had.
Leslie Stephens/Food52 / Via food52.com
Why Go?: It’s the perfect way to start your day.
Local Tip: Sqirl Away, a takeout extension of Sqirl will open this August.
Must Try: Toast. Whether it’s toast with chocolate ganache, quince pasta, or a fried egg and greens.
Jaime Beechum / Via sqirlla.com
The Cuban Communist party launched its official newspaper Granma in 1965. Karla Zabludovsky visited its newsroom to meet a woman who has been there since the very beginning.
Eliana Aponte for BuzzFeed News
Eliana Aponte for Buzzfeed News
Eliana Aponte for Buzzfeed News
Eliana Aponte for Buzzfeed News
For anyone tired of tales of visionary young CEOs, here’s one old man’s meandering journey to discovering his greatest talent: He could sell the hell out of fried chicken.
KFC
Visitors to Comic-Con in San Diego this week may see a new action hero dotting the halls alongside Wolverine and Wonder Woman: a dapper Southern gent who, according to his creators, "started out as an underdog and overcame obstacles that gave him superhuman cooking skills."
They'll likely recognize him as the face that beams over about 4,400 fried chicken joints across America.
Today's consumers may know Harland Sanders only as a brand logo, but there was a time when the man himself was a walking, talking presence on TV screens and at events across the world. A review of the many books written about his life reveals a man who was foul-mouthed and hot-tempered, had an insatiable libido, once shot a man, delivered babies, and "took his cane" to those who failed to fry chicken to his standards.
But he was also relentlessly hardworking, entrepreneurial, and charitable, giving away most of his wealth to organizations like the Salvational Army. But most of those details have been forgotten.
The Colonel, once a regular face in KFC's ads, died 35 years ago at the age of 90. Now, as the chain tries to turn around its struggling U.S. business, he's making a comeback of sorts.
Colonel Sanders recently appeared in new commercials, played by Saturday Night Live announcer Darrell Hammond. And this week for Comic-Con, the company is taking its Colonel campaign further yet. In KFC Presents: The Colonel's Adventure Comics, he appears as an unlikely superhero, rolling through a series of adventures that dramatize actual events in his life.
Such a portrayal may be a stretch, but as BuzzFeed News found from speaking to his descendants and reading the stories that documented his life, the real Harland Sanders' story is far stranger and more meandering than any grinning face on a bucket meal would let on.
Unlike the idealized founders of modern business folklore — young prodigies blessed by wealth and success before their 25th birthday — Sanders was well into his sixties before the business he is known for took shape. His is a scattered tale that echoed the rapidly changing lives of rural Americans in the early 20th century. And most of it had nothing to do with chicken.
KFC
A number of books have been written about the founder of the chain once known as Kentucky Fried Chicken: his own daughter Margaret Sanders' The Colonel's Secret: Eleven Herbs and A Spicy Daughter; journalist John Ed Pearce's The Colonel: The Captivating Biography of the Dynamic Founder of a Fast-Food Empire; and food writer Josh Ozersky's Colonel Sanders and the American Dream. Then there's Sanders' own book, Life As I Have Known It Has Been Finger Lickin' Good.
Sanders chased a countless variety of odd jobs and failed businesses, many of them tied to the vast technological change of the early 1900s. He worked on the railroads, and then with the automobiles that overtook them. He ran a ferry service, sold gas lamps, and operated gas stations before settling down and starting a roadside motel and restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky, in the 1930s.
People remember him as a tireless worker. "He just never gave up, never, never gave up on anything," Sanders' granddaughter Josephine Wurster told BuzzFeed News. "He was a wonderful grandfather, a very caring, wonderful man. I have very fond memories."
After many less profitable ventures, it wasn't until Sanders was nearing retirement age that he tried a novel business model that would soon transform American commerce: franchising.
Running gas stations in the late 1920s meant Sanders had experience in one of the first industries to use the franchise model. Franchising in the U.S. goes back to the mid-1800s, when the Singer sewing machine company franchised the sale and repair of its equipment, but it wasn't until the 1950s that it emerged as a driving force in the restaurant industry.
Part of that emergence was thanks to Sanders, who in the mid-1950s was approaching retirement with little in the bank. As a last-ditch plan to produce some retirement income, he drove from town to town convincing restaurant owners to sign up and pay a nickel-per-bird fee to sell his secret-recipe fried chicken.
"His business acumen was limited to running a small business out of his hip pocket," Sanders' grandson Trigg Adams told BuzzFeed News. "And he did well at that. But it wasn't the same thing [as what KFC later became] by any order of magnitude."
But by embarking on this modest effort, Sanders was at the forefront of the restaurant franchising boom in the U.S., which was facilitated by the same infrastructure improvements around the country — like railways and roads — that he worked on as a younger man. The enactment of the Lanham Act in 1946 to protect trademarks, the population surge, the development of the highway system, and the growth of the American suburb all created an environment that fueled the rise of the franchise.
John Reynolds, president of the International Franchise Association's Educational Foundation, described Sanders as "a pioneer." He and his contemporaries "looked around and saw lots of businesses doing things in a non-standard way, and with lots of trial and error." They introduced the quality control and consistency that made customers loyal not just to a single location, but to a brand.
Sanders crafted a theatrical persona of "the Colonel" to attract diners, and later to attract franchisees. In the 1970s, when he was still alive and the business was stuck in a rut, the company initiated a "recolonelization" program that focused on getting back to Sanders' principles of good food.
But Sanders had already lived through so much more before that.
Since 2012, Republicans have spent time, money, and energy working to reach out to Latinos, and saw some success last year. But now a loudmouth they’ve had trouble completely repudiating is lighting up Hispanic media every night.
Greg Allen / AP
No Democrats are quoted in this story.
It's not that they don't want to be. There is no topic that fills them more with unbridled glee, outrage, or fake outrage than Donald Trump. His antics help Democrats who want the GOP to be seen as xenophobic and unable to discuss issues that deal with Hispanics, like immigration, in a respectful, measured manner.
But for those who have worked to improve the GOP brand with Hispanics, the last month of the Trump comedy spectacular, in which he has called Mexicans criminals and rapists and doubled down on those comments, has been deeply unsettling. More importantly, they worry it risks further damaging the party with Latinos and eroding gains they've already made — even as candidates like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio put them in a potentially even better place.
Republicans have made real and concerted efforts, over a period of time, to engage Hispanics after 2012. The Republican National Committee's Growth and Opportunity project has been well-funded, successful in key 2014 races, and is ramping up for the presidential cycle, with the largest chunk of spending going toward Hispanic outreach.
Latinos on the left worry about the LIBRE Initiative, a Koch-funded project that's doing real on-the-ground work in Hispanic churches and communities, all while espousing conservative principles in literature and on Latino media. GROW Elect, an effort started in California and expanding to Southwest states, helped dozens of Latino Republicans get elected in 2014, often in Hispanic districts.
The goal with these projects is clear: showing that the Republican Party is not the enemy. And Trump, these Republicans worry, is ruining that.
"The greatest harm is to Trump himself — he says he can win the Latino vote, he's kidding himself," said Ruben Barrales, who leads GROW Elect and is the son of Mexican immigrants. "Now young Hispanics will be smashing Donald Trump piñatas at their birthday parties in celebration. He fails to recognize the harm on the Trump brand. But it's damaging not just to Republican Latino efforts, but to Republican efforts as a whole."
Barrales pointed to the campaign for California's Proposition 187, which took aim at undocumented immigrants and featured harsh ads about Latinos, as a moment when Latinos decided the GOP was against them.
Trump hasn't just dominated the mainstream media, but has been viewing nightly on Univision and Telemundo, the Spanish-language giants that reach Hispanic homes across the country.
"Trump has turned out to be Sheriff Joe Arpaio's replacement as the principal villain in what has practically become a new nightly telenovela on Univision and Telemundo," said MRC Latino's director, Ken Oliver-Méndez, whose organization monitors Spanish-language media's inclusion of conservative viewpoints.
Since his announcement, Oliver-Méndez said, Trump has been mentioned at least once or twice in practically every newscast with very few exceptions on the three major networks MRC Latino monitors: Univision, Telemundo, and MundoFox.
"It's a distraction, a major distraction," said LIBRE's executive director, Daniel Garza. "It's not the narrative you want driving the national news." But he said Trump has created a realignment within the immigration debate, where the bombastic businessman represents the extreme fringe and other presidential candidates are able to emerge as the adults in the room.
Still, Republicans have not just had to comment on Trump, but some have had to do so repeatedly. When Trump retweeted a comment by someone saying that Jeb Bush has to like the "Mexican illegals" because of his wife, Bush was forced to say, "You can love the Mexican culture, you can love your Mexican-American wife and also believe that we need to control the border."
Izzy Santa, former director of Hispanic media at the RNC, said Trump is the only person who disregards that tone, and rhetoric matters.
"Trump's comments hurt the Republican field for the next cycle because it portrays Republicans as out of touch when it comes to understanding Hispanic culture and the immigration debate," she said.
Republican officials have also pushed back against Trump. RNC Chair Reince Priebus reportedly called Trump and told him to "tone it down." House Speaker John Boehner condemned the use of immigration as a "political football."
Still, people maintain all's not lost. A prominent Hispanic operative advising a Republican campaign called Trump irrelevant and said he doesn't reflect the views of the party.
A Latino at a different campaign said the good news for Republicans is that it's 2015, not 2016. The operative said candidates who have had to engage Latinos in the past, like Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Rick Perry, and Chris Christie, know that they have to speak to Hispanic voters, who will be paying attention to how they respond to Trump and the immigration issue. "I think it's a defining moment for the Republican candidates on where they stand in regards to these comments," the strategist said, adding that Ted Cruz's embrace of Trump "has disqualified him as a serious general election candidate."
Trump, relishing his role as presidential troll, has made it clear that he isn't going anywhere.
On Saturday, Trump will hold a "Stand Up To Illegal Immigration" joint event with Arpaio in Arizona. The question now for GOP presidential candidates is even if they come out stronger to repudiate him, how can they stop Trump from being Trump, all the while representing their party?
Barrales said just as Republicans were leaders most recently in South Carolina to help take down the Confederate flag, they need to be here with Trump as well.
One prominent Latino operative who advises campaigns laid out the stakes, saying continued comments and a focus on Trump only endangers the work Republicans have been putting in for the last few years.
"Trump's divisive rhetoric and harsh tone is undermining those efforts and could potentially block Republican's path to the White House in 2016," the operative said.
Do you know your flags, capital cities, and country outlines?
What would your outcome be on Flight 815? SPOILERS AHEAD.
