Hanging on the cliffs 300 feet above the clear blue waters of the Aegean Sea, the Katikies Hotel was the very first luxury hotel built on the island of Santorini. Bathe in the hotel’s picturesque infinity pools and unforgettable views. 
Pop music superstar Beyonce has a concert scheduled May 31 in Pittsburgh, but she may find it difficult to procure security for the event.
That’s apparently because many of the police who’ve been asked to work the concert have voiced opposition in being forced to do so. They have reportedly cited Beyonce’s latest album as being anti-police behind their reasoning.
The problem has been a recurring one for the pop star ever since the release of her latest album Lemonade. And after her half-time show at this year’s Super Bowl — depicting her dancers being dressed in Black Panther Party attire with fists raised in the formation of an “X” in honor of Malcolm X — police departments have resisted providing services to the pop star.
Lyrics and images from her song and music video Formation have been understandably criticized for being anti-cop. Scenes from the video depicted the police as aggressors, and accuse them of killing innocent civilians, among other anti-police themes.
While the superstar sensation denies being anti-police, critics say her actions speak otherwise. Robert Swartzwelder of the Fraternal Order of the Police Lodge No. 1 told Fox News, “There are police officers that have expressed that they do not want to support an artist that they don’t like what she has to say…It’s up to them what they want to do with their off-duty time.”
Beyonce’s tour is responsible for providing security at concerts. Typically, off-duty police officers will work private events for a contracted fee, but the tour may be having a difficult time finding officers willing to defend her freedom to criticize local law enforcement.
As Western Journalism reported in February, Tampa police also expressed similar disapproval of Beyonce’s anti-police themes and did not rush to sign up for off-duty pay for providing security. Likewise, the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, citing her half-time performance, called for a boycott at a Beyonce concert earlier this year, according to Fox News.
h/t: Business Insider
Jack Nicklaus, “The Golden Bear,” has endorsed Donald Trump as the next president of the United States.
Nicklaus’ endorsement is the latest in a long list of celebrity endorsements the billionaire has received since he became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
The 76-year-old Nicklaus, who owns a record 18 victories in the sport’s major championships, sat down with Jim Axelrod on CBS Sunday Morning to share his thoughts on the businessman’s run for the presidency. Axelrod asked Nicklaus if he took pleasure in doing business with Trump.
“Actually, Donald’s terrific,” the golfing legend said, adding he has worked with Trump on many golf-related projects. “He’s absolutely treated me great. He’s been above board. Whatever I’ve wanted to do, as long as it’s within reason, no, I think he’s terrific.”
Axelrod wanted to know if Nicklaus believed there was anything transferable about Trump’s business experience which is applicable to the presidency.
The legendary golfer said he didn’t want to get too political, but said, “I like what Donald has done. I like that he’s turning America upside down. He’s awakening the country.”
Axelrod asked if America needs a little of that, to which Nicklaus responded, “We need a lot of that.”
“Is he a politician? Is he as smooth and politically correct as he should be? Probably not. But he’ll learn. He’s not stupid. He didn’t get where he was being dumb. I like the guy. He’s a good man. And certainly, if he’s the one on the ticket, I’ll be voting for him,” said one of the greatest — and most popular — golfers to have ever teed it up.
The forecast was for something very much out of the ordinary as Huntington, W. Va., meteorologist Bryan Hughes prepared to give his weather report Thursday.
Hughes was preparing to tell WOWK viewers about the day’s weather, and was in the midst of discussing the Texas Tech Meat Science Team, when he got a larger-than-life surprise.
A large black spider had apparently crawled across the lens of the camera, showing up as a mammoth insect on the weather map behind Hughes.
“Ahh! Geez Louise!” he screamed when he saw the spider.
“Why did that just happen? I nearly lost my lunch,” Hughes continued as he started to understand what had happened. “Oh man, saints alive, we’ve gotta get out there and kill those things.”
WOWK posted a video of the broadcast online. It soon became popular.
As he had his brush with fame, Hughes took to Twitter.
I couldn’t help it. Honestly! I screamed like a little girl. Now, where’s the matches and gasoline?!? https://t.co/ik6PHMdZvm
— Bryan Hughes (@bryanweather) May 19, 2016
“I couldn’t help it. Honestly! I screamed like a little girl. Now, where’s the matches and gasoline?!?” he tweeted.
The BBC, which had seen the video, gave Hughes a playful jab. “Our @bbcweather presenters are made of tougher stuff!” the BBC joked.
Hughes then replied back.
I dare you to a Spider face off! Can you handle an 8 legged monster?!? https://t.co/wfmU9ltcrF
— Bryan Hughes (@bryanweather) May 20, 2016
“I dare you to a Spider face off! Can you handle an 8-legged monster?!?” he tweeted.
h/t: TheBlaze
Fox News host Megyn Kelly may need Donald Trump to get mad at her all over again.
In the wake of Tuesday’s non-fireworks interview with the Republican presidential candidate, the Washington Post noted that “her status as a media darling appeared to disappear.”
In the wake of her interview, Kelly — who had wide support while battling with Trump during the GOP primary process — found herself on the receiving end of criticism from her media colleagues.
“Megyn Kelly didn’t ask Donald Trump to headline her Fox special Megyn Kelly Presents so she could pin him down on foreign and domestic policy issues, or even confront him about the months-long troll attack he launched after she dared question him during the first Republican debate about his penchant for misogynistic language,” Los Angeles Times media critic Mary McNamara wrote. “No, she invited him to costar in an hour-long infomercial for her new book.”
Gabriel Sherman, writing in New York magazine, said the interview “exposed the extent of her limited mainstream appeal.”
Sherman went on to quote unnamed TV executives scoffing at her audience of 4.8 million viewers.
“Not good for her at all,” one said; while others said Kelly needed an audience of 9 million to achieve breakthrough status.
Kelly has publicly raged at critics who demeaned the show, but Sherman reports Kelly acts differently in private.
“She’s very upset with the show reaction, and in hindsight with how it was produced,” she quotes a Fox official as telling her.
Sherman said reaction to the interview will have high stakes for Kelly, who is in the final year of her contract with Fox.
“Before the special, she had maneuvered herself into a position of significant leverage over her boss Roger Ailes and seemed poised to land either a new deal from Fox with a salary in the $25 million range or a plum job at another network. Industry sources said Ailes couldn’t afford to lose Kelly. Now her advantage looks smaller,” Sherman wrote
h/t: Breitbart
The ride-sharing company Uber provides a service that many people appreciate and use. However, there is a dangerous side to using Uber that Fox Sports reporter Kristine Leahy revealed Friday.
Leahy, who also hosts NBC’s American Ninja Warrior, made two disturbing revelations in a message posted on Twitter.
She said that about three months ago, she lost her keys while riding in an Uber driver’s vehicle. The driver said he dropped them off at Uber headquarters.
She then started the email process of getting the keys, but was frustrated by the slow response.
“Sometimes, it took a week just to get an automated response,” she wrote.
“Eventually they confirmed they had my keys and asked for my address so they could send them,” Leahy wrote in the note posted to Twitter.
But Leahy never got them. She said the service told her that because she did not pick them up within 45 days — even though they never provided her with a location to claim the keys — the keys are now gone.
“So either they were lying about having them in the first place of they are lying now and have keys to my apartment and car along with my address,” she wrote.
In addition to reporting the incident with her keys, Leahy noted that she “had an Uber driver try to break into my home in the past … so this is very scary.”
Uber did contact her, she said, but in a follow-up tweet, she was “STILL WAITING” for any action.
h/t: TheBlaze
Used to love @Uber but their lack of customer support and responsibility is scary. One driver tried to break in… pic.twitter.com/cucnGcRokd
— Kristine Leahy (@KristineLeahy) May 20, 2016
A Marine Corps veteran hailed as “an inspiration to every amputee and to all of us as a nation” has become the first combat amputee to scale Mount Everest.
Charles Linville of Boise, Idaho, along with Tim Medvetz of The Heroes Project, reached the peak Thursday.
Linville’s right leg was amputated below the knee after he stepped on an unexploded bomb in Afghanistan in 2011.
“I am so proud that he finally got to make an actual attempt at the mountain,” said his wife, Mandi. “Not only did he make an attempt, but he made it.”
“(Charlie’s) doing things most people wouldn’t imagine doing, let alone an amputee,” said Mandi, who said her husband trained for three years for the climb. His first two attempts failed after first an avalanche struck and, on his second attempt, a massive earthquake rocked Nepal.
The Heroes Project was founded by Medvetz after he was injured in a motorcycle crash in 2001. The project leads mountaineering expeditions with wounded veterans and active service members.
Rev. Franklin Graham lauded Linville’s accomplishment on his Facebook page.
“Not only was he a hero on the battlefield, but he is an inspiration to every amputee and to all of us as a nation! God bless Charlie and Mandi — Keep on climbing!” Graham wrote, adding that the couple “came to Alaska last summer to our Samaritan’s Purse Operation Heal Our Patriots program. While there, he and his wife Mandi accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior and were baptized in the waters of Lake Clark.”
h/t: The Idaho Statesman
At Wednesday’s meeting between Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and some conservatives irked by the social media site’s policy for shunting non-liberal news to the side, talk show host Glenn Back was way out of line, according to Daily Caller editor-in-chief Tucker Carlson.
“I went to that meeting expecting Beck to cry, rend his garments while quoting James Madison, but that’s not at all what happened,” Carlson told Politico. “He began the most extended assiduous suck-up I think I’ve ever seen a grown man commit. He acted like he was auditioning to be Mark Zuckerberg’s manservant — it was awe-inspiring.”
“I don’t know what his agenda is; it’s either he’s looking to put his tanking Web properties up for sale or he just can’t help himself. There’s a billionaire there, so he sniffs the throne,” Carlson said.
Beck has praised Zuckerberg and Facebook for the meeting, but has had less kind words for his fellow conservatives.
“I sat through a meeting that, to me, felt like I was attending a Rainbow Coalition meeting, that people (not me) had come with a list of demands,” Beck wrote in a blog post Thursday. “It was like affirmative action for conservatives.”
Beck said he expected he would be criticized for his stand.
“I know I will be blasted by people for my position on this. I will be called a sellout,” he wrote. “I will be accused of taking money or cowering for fear of retribution.”
Carlson said he asked Zuckerberg about increasing value-based diversity, but denied it was to achieve anything like affirmative action.
“You can look different but have the same values,” Carlson said. “That’s not diversity; it’s conformity. You want people with different life experiences as a backstop against bad decision.”
h/t: CBS News
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who was the target of a petition drive to ban him from Britain, said Friday he has been invited to visit 10 Downing St., home of Prime Minister David Cameron.
“But they have asked me to visit 10 Downing Street — and I might do it,” Trump said in an interview with MSNBC.
“I will do just fine with David Cameron. I think he’s a nice guy. I will do just fine,” Trump said Friday after saying he had been invited two days earlier.
Downing Street officials said that there has been no formal, official invitation, but noted it is the practice of the Prime Minster to meet with the presidential candidates of each major American political party and that an official invitation would most likely come after Trump is officially the Republican Party’s nominee.
Mitt Romney, the GOP’s 2012 nominee, received a similar invitation.
In December, Cameron harshly attacked Trump’s proposed temporary ban on Muslims.
“I think his remarks are divisive, stupid and wrong and I think if he came to visit our country I think it’d unite us all against him,” he said then.
In January, in the wake of Trump’s proposal, Parliament debated whether Trump should be banned from Britain after more than 600,000 people signed petitions to have Parliament take up the questions.
“People often say that the public are apathetic about politics,” said member Tulip Siddiq. “This online petition signed by nearly 600,000 people shows that when people feel a sense of justice, when people feel that we need to stop a poisonous, corrosive man (from) entering our country, they will act in good conscience. His words are poisonous. They risk inflaming tension between vulnerable communities.”
However lawmaker, Philip Davies supported Trump.
“In the race to become the next president, he’s been gaining support with a political manner that can be described as blunt directness,” Davies said. “He is definitely straight-talking, and as a Yorkshireman I certainly applaud him for that, too. In fact, I think in this country we could do with rather less political correctness and much more straight-talking across the board, and I think many of our constituents would agree.”
h/t: BBC
Two 40-year-old pieces of federal codes have now been expunged of terms such as “Oriental” and “Negro ” as part of a bill that was signed Friday by President Barack Obama.
“Many Americans may not be aware that the word ‘Oriental’ is derogatory,” said Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y. “But it is an insulting term that needed to be removed from the books, and I am extremely pleased that my legislation to do that is now the law of the land.”
An example of the change is in the Department of Energy Organization Act. Where it once read, “a Negro, Puerto Rican, American Indian, Eskimo, Oriental, or Aleut or is a Spanish-speaking individual of Spanish descent,” it now reads, “Asian American, Native Hawaiian, a Pacific Islander, African-American, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, Native American, or an Alaska Native.”
Along with that law, the Local Public Works Capital Development and Investment Act of 1976 also received a language update.
At least one commentator thought the law amounted to much ado about nothing.
“It’s amazing that some people are so offended over the dumbest things. These words are a part of history, of America’s past. Hardly anyone still uses these words today, so why cause such a fuss over nothing?” wrote John S. Roberts on Young Conservatives
“If you’re a liberal, sticks and stones may break your bones, but words are the true killer,” he said. “Remember, words have no power (over) you. Keep repeating that to yourself if you’re a Democrat.”
h/t: Young Conservatives