If past experience is anything to go by, Donald Trump will shortly be tweeting from the comfort of his bathroom to the effect that the soon-to-be-former Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky is a stone cold loserthat Trump has never actually met and who, even if he had met him, would not have been impressed. This, of course, despite the fact that Trump himself turned up in Kentucky on the eve of a rally for his Republican colleagueand declared to the audience that seeing Bevin lose to the Democrats sends a really bad message, pleading with his supporters, you cant let that happen to me!

Well, they did.

It was a fairly impressive win for the DemocratsAndy Beshear, who has declared victory though, at the time of writing,his opponent is yet to concede. He's the son of a previous Democrat governor, Steve Beshear, who Bevin beat in the 2015 contest, and although tight 49.2 per cent to 48.8 per cent with a 2 per cent poll for a Libertarian the swing from four years ago was a fairly impressive 4.5 per cent or so.

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The embarrassing thing is obviously the way that a personal appeal by no less a figure than the president himself should have been met with such a loud raspberry from Kentuckians the turnout was a pretty healthy one. If Trump, in other words, was to be on course and likely to win himself a second term in November 2020, then his party really ought to be holding places such as Kentucky, especially after Trump expended so much precious political capital there.

One of the oddities of the Trump phenomenon is that he does have the aura of a winnereven when he is losing. The bitterest example of that was the 2016 election itself when, never let it be neglected, he lost the popular vote whilst winning the Electoral College, and even there not overwhelmingly. No complaints there, because America has a Federal Constitution for a reason. But it serves as an example and emblem of that strange Trumpian quality of self belief a quality that, as we are all aware, can mutate into delusion.

Trump claimed to have fired Bolton, his national security adviser, while Bolton claimed he offered to resign. An anonymous White House source that Bolton's departure came as a result of the national security adviser working too independently of the president

AFP/Getty

Scaramucci lasted only six days in his role as Trump's communications director before being fired by John Kelly, the incoming chief of staff

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Rick Perry announced his resignation just as he became embroiled in the president's impeachment scandal. The White House said Mr Perry was asked by Donald Trump to work with Rudy GIuliani in regards to Ukraine.

AP

Tillerson, Trump's first secretary of state, was fired after a series of clashes with the president over policy

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Mattis served as secretary of defense from the beginning of Trump's administration until retiring on 1 January 2019. However, the president later claimed that he had "essentially fired" Mattis

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Comey was fired as director of the FBI early in Trump's presidency after serving in the role for four years prior. His dismissal is widely thought to have been related to the Russia investigation

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Priebus, Trump's first chief of staff, was forced out after six tumultuous months

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Veterans affairs secretary Shulkin claims that he was fired, the White House claims that he resigned

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Kelly, Trump's second chief of staff, was forced out after 17 months in office. His departure was a confused affair though it is clear that Trump wanted Kelly out

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Flynn lasted 24 days as Trump's national security adviser before being fired for lying to the FBI

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Cisna served as director of citizen and immigration services between October 2017 and June 2019 before being asked to resign amid a major personnel change in the department of homeland security

Westerhout served as Trump's personal assistant after leaking private information about his family

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Ricardel was forced out of her role as Deputy National Security Advisor after first lady Melania Trump publicly called for her to be fired

Trump claimed to have fired Bolton, his national security adviser, while Bolton claimed he offered to resign. An anonymous White House source that Bolton's departure came as a result of the national security adviser working too independently of the president

AFP/Getty

Scaramucci lasted only six days in his role as Trump's communications director before being fired by John Kelly, the incoming chief of staff

Getty

Rick Perry announced his resignation just as he became embroiled in the president's impeachment scandal. The White House said Mr Perry was asked by Donald Trump to work with Rudy GIuliani in regards to Ukraine.

AP

Tillerson, Trump's first secretary of state, was fired after a series of clashes with the president over policy

Getty

Mattis served as secretary of defense from the beginning of Trump's administration until retiring on 1 January 2019. However, the president later claimed that he had "essentially fired" Mattis

Getty

Comey was fired as director of the FBI early in Trump's presidency after serving in the role for four years prior. His dismissal is widely thought to have been related to the Russia investigation

Getty

Priebus, Trump's first chief of staff, was forced out after six tumultuous months

AFP/Getty

Veterans affairs secretary Shulkin claims that he was fired, the White House claims that he resigned

Getty

Kelly, Trump's second chief of staff, was forced out after 17 months in office. His departure was a confused affair though it is clear that Trump wanted Kelly out

AFP/Getty

Flynn lasted 24 days as Trump's national security adviser before being fired for lying to the FBI

Getty

Cisna served as director of citizen and immigration services between October 2017 and June 2019 before being asked to resign amid a major personnel change in the department of homeland security

Westerhout served as Trump's personal assistant after leaking private information about his family

AFP/Getty

Ricardel was forced out of her role as Deputy National Security Advisor after first lady Melania Trump publicly called for her to be fired

So Trump flopping, even by proxy, is seen as thing of a shockwhen it should anything but. He has consistently negative approval ratings, after all, and he lags any of his various Democrat opponents in the opinion polls.

Of course they can all be tuned over, and in the crucible of a real contest, as we witnesses in 2016, Trump is a formidable, no holds barred, uncompromising and brutal sort of political brawler.

There is another irony here, because Trump hasnt been such a failure as president, or at least as bad as his enemies would like to suppose. After all, the US economy is booming. Yet such success as Trump has enjoyed on the economy, on repatriatingjobs to America, on building his Mexican wall, and on bringing the troops home from the Middle East,hasnt been richly rewarded in public sympathy and gratitude.

For a reality TV star who has built much of his business empire on the projection of a certain powerful image, it is that very image aggressive, childish, sexist, racist, the bragging, the fragile ego, the whole House chaos, the sackings, the scandals, the spats with foreign leaders, the Russian stuff, the impeachment crisis, the international scorn that seems to be letting him down. Americans dont seem to be able to link such successes as the administration has had with the president himself. It is as if the policies are succeeding, to the extent that they are, despite Trumps efforts rather than because of them.

A single gubernatorial contest in one relatively small state doesnt mean the end of Trump. It does, however, draw some much-needed attention to the fundamental weakness in Trumps political appeal as an incumbent, as opposed to an insurgent:how little liked and, more crucially, how little respected he is among so many Americans as their head of government and head of state.

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The truth is that, outside the base, they probably never liked Trump much. Theylike himeven less now, and theyre not especially impressed by his time in office, whatever his positive achievements.

So long as the Democrats dont actually scare the voters away, the 2020 presidential contest looks like it is theirs to lose even for sleepy Joe Biden. It is not a good place for a president seeking a second term to find himself a year out from polling day.

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Donald Trump lost Kentucky for the Republicans the 2020 presidential election is now the Democrats' to lose - The Independent

A drag show? Gay rights? Body image issues? Hardly the stuff of Disney animation, but 30 years ago, Disneys The Little Mermaid tackled these topics and made a courageous statement about identity in Reagan-era America. Moreover, the movie not only saved the company from almost certain death, but allowed Disney to become the international corporate juggernaut we know today.

Without the brave storytellers and desperate animators of The Little Mermaid, moviegoers would have missed out on the new classics of Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994). And without the profits from those films, Disney would not have had the capital to build new parks and resorts, invest in new media ventures, or expand its urban planning program, let alone gobble up Pixar, Marvel, Fox, the Star Wars universe, National Geographic, ESPN, A&E and Hulumoves entirely unthinkable back in the 1980s, when the corporation was in its darkest hour.

When Walt Disney died suddenly in 1966, his company was left aimless. The creative atmosphere for which the Company has so long been famous and on which it prides itself has, in my opinion, become stagnant, wrote Walts nephew Roy E. Disney in his 1977 resignation letter from Walt Disney Productions (though he retained his seat on the board). Uncle Walt had personally overseen almost every project, and without his direction, production slowed and revenue declined. The animation studio kept cranking out films, but they were expensive to make, spent years in production, and lacked the inspiration of earlier classics. Features like The Aristocats (1970), Robin Hood (1973) and Petes Dragon (1977) failed at the box office and seemed out of place in a new era of gritty Hollywood film noir. Movies were the lifeblood of Disney, and the company was suffering. To make matters worse, Walt Disney World opened in central Florida in 1971 (followed by EPCOT in 1982), costing a fortune but yielding little profit.

By 1984, stock prices sagged, wages were cut, layoffs ensued, and corporate raiders circled. To prevent a hostile takeover, Disneys Board of Directors, led by Roy E. Disney, brought in a brash young executive from ABC and Paramount: Michael Eisner. Though he had no experience with animation and no personal connection to Disney (according to journalist James Stewarts searing expos Disney War, Eisner had not seen a Disney film until adulthood and had never even visited Disneyland), the new CEO was confident he could save the company by cutting costs, eliminating Walt-era traditions, and focusing on television and live-action films. Eisner was fanatical at keeping costs low to earn a profit, wrote Stewart.

Disney traditionalists were aghast, but the plan seemed to work. With Eisner at the helm, the studio produced inexpensive hits like Three Men and a Baby (1987), as well as several popular tv shows, including The Golden Girls (1985). Eisner also realized the untapped profit potential of the Disney parks, so he authorized new top-tier attractions (like Splash Mountain), created new luxury hotels, and opened Disney-MGM Studios (now Disneys Hollywood Studios) and Typhoon Lagoon in 1989.

The cash flow returned, and the company became financially viable again. Eisners achievement seemed to prove that Disney no longer needed animation. (1989s Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, though featuring classic animated characters, was truly more of a live-action film.) Sure, Disney animators produced a couple of modest successes, such as The Great Mouse Detective (1986) and Oliver & Co (1988), but they were far too expensive for the cost-conscious Eisner. Animation, according to the CEO, simply wasnt worth the money, time, and risk. Thus, he put animation on notice: Find a way to be quick and profitable, or youre dead. To emphasize the point, Stewart reported, Eisner banished animators from their beloved historic Burbank studio (where Walt had once roamed the halls) to a warehouse in Glendale on the other side of Los Angeles. This might be the beginning of the end, lamented animator Andreas Deja in a bonus making of feature on The Little Mermaid DVD. The writing is on the wall, weve got to prove ourselves, added animator Glen Keane.

It was time for a Hail Mary pass. Animators knew they had to do something dramatically different to save Walts studio from the suits, so they turned to Broadways most innovative team: writer-producer Howard Ashman and lyricist Alan Menken. Fresh off the success of their smash hit Little Shop of Horrors (with its satirical songs and gruesome humor), Ashman and Menken were skeptical about working for Disney, which to many young artists was a conservative old company stuck in the 1950s, symbolic of an intolerant past rather than an expansive future. Nevertheless, the duo agreed to sign on as long as they had complete artistic control and the freedom to explore taboo topics.

At the suggestion of director Ron Clements, studio chiefs decided to pursue the Hans Christian Andersen tale The Little Mermaid, except with a happy ending and a central villain. (In the original story, the mermaid does not get the prince. Instead, she faces a variety of antagonists and ends up committing suicide.) Ashman got right to work, transforming the depressing 19th-century yarn into a dynamic Broadway spectacle.

In classic Disney animated features of old, plot was advanced through dialogue, and songs were incidental. For instance, in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the song Whistle While you Work does nothing to move the plot forward. Ashman and Menken approached the films book as they would a Broadway musical, using songs to impart critical plot points and character development. Music tells the audience everything they need to know about Ariel: The song Part of Your World, for instance, is a classic example of the I Want trope of American musical theater. They approached it like a Broadway musical, recalled Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel, in the DVD documentary. It is something totally different. The characters actually run out of words, cant express themselves anymore, and it has to come out in song.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, former chairman of the studio, added, I dont know where the knowledge came from, [and] I dont know how it came to be, but man, [Ashman] just understood it.

Ashman, like young Walt Disney, oversaw every aspect of the creative process. He invented the characters, defined their personalities, and coached the voice actors on their performances. He was brilliant, remembered Pat Carroll (the voice of Ursula), in the documentary, of the time when Ashman enacted Poor Unfortunate Souls. I watched every body move of his, I watched everything, I watched his face, I watched his hands, I ate him up!

A gay man in 1980s America, Ashman had personal experience with the culture wars over family values and gay rights. The Reagan Revolution marked the arrival of the long-brewing marriage of the Republican Party with conservative Christians and included a platform that was unfriendly to gay rights, to say the least. President Reagan ignored the AIDS epidemic that swept the nation (refusing to appropriate any federal funds for research or treatment), and Republicans in general claimed the gay plague was Gods punishment for homosexuality. Ashman saw the film as an opportunity to advance a social message through the medium of family entertainment. The last thing Americans would expect from Disney was a critique of patriarchy, but sure enough, Ashmans The Little Mermaid is a gutsy film about gender and identitya far cry from the staid Disney catalog.

The central story of The Little Mermaid is, of course, 16-year-old Ariels identity crisis. She feels constrained by her patriarchal mer-society and senses she doesnt belong. She yearns for another world, apart from her own, where she can be free from the limits of her rigid culture and conservative family. Her body is under the water, but her heart and mind are on land with people. She leads a double life. She is, essentially, in the closet (as symbolized by her cavernor closetof human artifacts, where the character-building song Part of Your World takes place).

When Ariel ventures to tell her friends and family about her secret identity, they chastise her and tell her she must conform. She must meet her fathers expectations, sing on demand, perform for the public and give up all hopes of a different life. Her father, King Triton, even has her followed by a court official. In her misery, Ariel flees to the sea witch Ursula, the only strong female in the entire film and thus Ariels only female role model. At this point, the movie becomes truly subversive cinema.

Conceived by Ashman, Ursula is based on the famous cross-dressing performer Divine, who was associated with the openly gay filmmaker John Waters. As scholar Laura Sells explained in a 1995 anthology of essays, Ursulas Poor Unfortunate Souls song is essentially a drag show instructing the naive mermaid on how to attract Prince Eric (who is conspicuously uninterested in Ariel and most content at sea with his all-male crew and manservant Grimsby). In Ursulas drag scene, Sells wrote, Ariel learns that gender is performance; Ursula doesnt simply symbolize woman, she performs woman.

While teaching young Ariel how to get your man, Ursula applies makeup, exaggerates her hips and shoulders, and accessorizes (her eel companions, Flotsam and Jetsam, are gender neutral)all standard tropes of drag. And dont underestimate the importance of body language!, sings Ursula with delicious sarcasm. The overall lesson: Being a woman in a mans world is all about putting on a show. You are in control; you control the show. Sells added, Ariel learns gender, not as a natural category, but as a performed construct. Its a powerful message for young girls, one deeply threatening to the King Tritons (and Ronald Reagans) of the world.

In short, Ursula represents feminism, the fluidity of gender, and young Ariels empowerment. Ariel can be anything she wants, yet she chooses the role of young bride and human conformity. To ensure Ariels transition to domesticity, the men of her life murder Ursula with a conveniently phallic symbol, according to Patrick D. Murphy: or, as Sells puts it, the ritual slaughtering of the archetypal evil feminine character. Either way, the movie implicitly offers a dark and disturbing message about the limits of American society in the late 1980s.

Nevertheless, audiences and critics adored the film, and the Hail Mary paid off, grossing a whopping-for-the-time $222 million worldwide won two Academy Awards. Los Angeles Times reviewer Michael Wilmington called The Little Mermaid a big leap over previous animated features, and Janet Maslin of the New York Times hailed it as the best animated Disney film in at least 30 years, destined for immortality. Still, most reviewers failed to observe the films culturally subversive messages, even as they recognized what made Ariel unique. Roger Ebert, to his credit, described Ariel as a a fully realized female character who thinks and acts independently.

One of the films few negative reviewers, Hal Hinson of the Washington Posthe described the movie as only passable and unspectactular at least lauded Disney for delivering a heroine who has some sense of what she wants and the resources to go after it, even if she looks like Barbara Eden on I Dream of Jeannie. (Wilmington, while catching the Divine allusion, couldnt help but objectify Ariels appearance, describing her as a sexy little honey-bunch with a double-scallop-shell bra and a mane of red hair tossed in tumble-out-of-bed Southern California salon style.) A 1989 screening of the film at the University of Southern California likewise yielded questions about feminist interpretations, but nothing about identity, gender, or gay rights.

Nevertheless, Disney animation was saved. Howard Ashman had proven that Disney films could be far more than sleeping princesses and pixies. Eisner grudgingly accepted the victory and green-lit a new project, Beauty and the Beast, which followed the same Broadway formula and was designed by the Mermaid team of Ashman, Menken, and Clements. Tragically, Ashman died of AIDS in March 1991, just months before the films November premiere.

Ashman never saw how his bold creative vision ushered in a new era of Disney prosperity. Profits from The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin permitted energetic expansion of the Disney corporation into almost every facet of American life. Disney leads the world in the production and distribution of popular culture, observed media studies professor Lee Artz in a 2005 essay. None challenge Disney as the primary purveyor of entertainment nor approach its perennial popularity and box-office success in animated feature films. Indeed, animation is central to Disneys economic vitality and cultural influence.

Disney is beyond doubt an exemplary model of the new face of corporate power at the beginning of the twenty-first century, wrote leading Disney critical Henry A. Giroux in 2010. The money from The Lion King alone paved the way for a fourth park in central Florida: Disneys Animal Kingdom. And the revenue from all these new ventures allowed Disney to corner global media and merchandising markets, making the company one of the most powerful megacorporations in the world.

Not too shabby for a courageous Broadway visionary and a team of desperate animators who were willing to push social boundaries, advocating a message of gender fluidity and female empowerment that wouldnt become widely acceptable until much later.

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'The Little Mermaid' Was Way More Subversive Than You Realized - Smithsonian.com

Live Free or Die

Four 21st Century Black women, a Doctor, a Lawyer, a CFO, and a Media Executive, discuss Harriet, the controversial movie about the slave who walked, swam,ran and bore arms to free herself and her people.

(WARNING: Contains spoilers!)

Black women were introduced to Harriet as children. When we first learned about the horrors of slavery, and later about its Black heroes like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman== our own Black Moses!We learned that Harriet used her courage, brilliance, and determination to free herself and hundreds of other slaves.

Today our Shero Harriet has a movie! Cynthia Erivo, a beautiful Nigerian British national, plays Harriet. Erivo turned Harriet Tubman into a real person, who experiences both unspeakablele tragedy and great triumph. We understand that Harriets heroism stems entirely from her faith in herself and God almighty. (What else could a Black person in 19th century America rely on?).

4 Black women friends of mine and I watched Harriet this weekend and took in her, now Hollywood story. We had a lot of thoughts.

Marie shows Harriet how to protect herself.

The Lawyer, Angela D: Together We Win

Theres a lot to say about this movie, but Ill focus on one relationship that reminded me of modern times: Harriets relationship with the bourgeois black woman, Marie, played by Janelle Monae. While I admire and want to be as fearless as Harriet Tubman, I identified with Marie, a free and independent Black woman who risked her economic and physical security to help other black people.

In Harriet and Maries first encounter, Marie tells Harriet that she wanted her to clean up because she smelled like a pack animal.Harriet took offense and rightfully threw shade. Responding with something akin to: Pardon my stench mademoiselle; we ordinary Blacks get a little funky running for our lives.This episode reminded me of the tension and the disconnect that sometimes exists,in the U.S., between Black people who are struggling and those who are seemingly better off.

Despite their differences, the ladies had a real relationship. Marie gives Harriet lessons on taking ones place in society, and she becomes Harriets close confidant and champion. They and we re-learn that when it comes to being a Black woman in America, both the formerly enslaved Harriet (the lowest of the low) and the freeborn, bourgeois Marie arent that different from each other. They are sisters in the struggle. Neither woman is safe in 19th century U.S. Society, and they need each other to win This is a good lesson for Black women even today.

The Doctor:Sarah W. :I Saw My Path In Her

Immediately after seeing Harriet, I sat down to write about my experience. Even though I already had a cursory knowledge about Harriet Tubman, I was still drawn into the story. I loved learning about the story of an enslaved woman who could no longer stand to have her freedom withheld.She not only made a great escape to the North, but she returned countless times to bring hundreds of other slaves to freedom. I dont think anyone else did that in U.S. history!

Music is a central part of the movies story.This movie soundtrack has lyrics that resonate; it will become a part of my daily playlist.

STAND UP

I do what I can when I can while I can for my people

While the clouds roll back and the stars fill the night

That's when I'm gonna stand up

Take my people with me

Together we are going

To a brand new home

Far across the river

Can you hear freedom calling?

Calling me to answer

Gonna keep on keepin' on

I can feel it in my bones

Stand Up is Harriets theme song, and it suits her. Harriet stood up and fought against the status quo. She was about freeing slaves in the now. She refused to sit and wait for war to make Blacks free. I do what I can when I can while I can for my people.

I was impressed by Harriets patience and perseverance. There were no shortcuts or easy passages in the Underground Railroad. She had to have the patience and tenacity to see things through.

In my own way, I understand her experience. There were no shortcuts for me through medical school or residency. They were a means to an end, freedom and self-sufficiency. My end is not nearly as iconic as Harriets, but I am (like her) still a unicorn among the 2% of physicians who are African American and female. I stand on the shoulders of Harriet and other extraordinary women. The prominent role that music serves in Harriet reminds me that because of these powerful women, I can.

Freeborn Marie meets Harriet for the first time.

The Financial Executive: Andrea M.:Code Switching, Then and Now

I first heard of Harriet Tubman as a second grader in the Bronx. I had an African-American teacher who taught Black History. Harriet was described as a woman of fortitude who would take on anyone who threatened the success of her mission. She seemed fearless to me.

While Harriet resonated with me, after her speech on how free Blacks had forgotten the hardships of slavery, I recognized my similarities to Marie. Marie was proud to have benefited from the efforts of her ancestors, and of having been born free. She recognized that respecting customs and class-based mannerisms was necessary to maneuver smoothly in the world. She employed the fashion, mannerisms, and diction of her oppressor to facilitate moving through his world with fluidity, and she thrived from doing so.

What Marie could do was, in modern parlance, code switch. Most professional women of color have done this. Whether were choosing earrings, dining with colleagues or drafting an email, we are cognizant of the nuances of these things to expedite our progress...or not.

Instead of portraying Marie and Harriet as potential rivals each with her unique assets used toward the end of her cause, the movie makes them sisters in the struggle. After an initial introduction and a comment about Harriets aroma upon arriving in Philadelphia, each woman recognizes that she has met a woman who will, on her worst day, look out for herself and be her own advocate. Indeed, the strength they recognized in each other would be tested and, Harriets sister in spirit does not disappoint when given a choice to spill secrets or keep them at her own peril. When tested, a sister of spirit could look her oppressor in the face and would sooner spit in his eye than betray her sister-no matter the cost.

Harriet also stands as an exemplar of courage that trait common to many heroes and heroines - not being free of fears, but of taking daring, often dangerous, actions in spite of them. She feared most what would happen to those she left behind in slavery, but she felt compelled to do what she could to free her family and others caught in slaverys terrible web. She confronted her fears through action. This was so powerful for me as Ive learned that there is no better balm for anxiety over what gives me worry than taking some action toward it. Harriet left her family and new husband, lost her sisters, and endured abuse to embark on a dangerous journey that no one thought shed complete. Many Black and brown folks operating in the modern world have also left home to create a personal and professional life for themselves. We may have experienced slights and subtle (or not-so-subtle) racism. We have also felt the distance between ourselves, family and/or close friends created by our different experiences. It was not absence of fear that allowed us to move forward but the knowledge that we could maintain our connection while adding another way of traveling in the world. Having both would not weaken us. We can recognize the fire in the eye of a sister in spirit.

Harriet, alone in her struggle for freedom.

The Media Executive: Michelle W.: The Commitments That Freedom Requires

I made a point of going to see Harriet opening weekend to help bolster the box office numbers of films featuring black artistsas I am personally invested in keeping the funding of these types of films going. So many of my black female friends had planned to go see the film since the first trailer aired over a year ago. Some saw advance screenings starting on Thursday. Some were inspired, others were disappointed, but most intended to see it again because their first session had been so clouded by their own emotional reactions that they didnt really remember what actually happened in the film.

Cynthia Erivos controversial retweets about Ghetto American accents also hovered over my mind as I watched.Was she the right choice? Could she carry an entire film authentically and make me forget?Though she was not helped by a weak script and uninspired directing more often than not Erivo delivered.

The film also too often revisits the stereotypes of the strong, black woman who emasculates her black male thus contributing to her perpetual singleness. Indeed, Harriets husband justifies marrying another free woman in her absence by saying he would have died for her had she let him.Ill simply say here I am sick of hearing this sh//t, but understand why its an easy go to theme.

But watching the Harriet movie as a free black woman in America in 2019, I couldnt help but wonder whether I was doing enough as a free person. I am very accomplished. Ive gone to all the right schools (Harvard College, Columbia Business School), had major accomplishments as a professional producer for major news networks. and now I am a media executive for a Fortune 15 companybut as I watched the films depictions of Harriet challenging the white and black Abolitionist Society in Auburn, NY, and indeed the entire slavocracy, I had to ask myself was I becoming complacent?

Despite its shortcomings, one leaves the film challenged by the concept of what is still required of individuals in defense of humanity. In todays society where we have a President facing impeachment. but still focused on building walls and othering people of different hues, what is the responsibility of we free people?

Overall, the film challenged me as a black woman and as a human being to keep going, to stumble, to fall, to get up, to be alone, to be lonely, to be unreasonable, to be unrelenting, to be accountable in this land of the freeto be free.

Harriet scored $12.6 million at the box office opening weekend. Ranking #4.

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4 Black Women Talk About Harriet And Her Lessons For Today - Forbes

Four games in and Cody Zeller has been playing on another level for the Charlotte Hornets. Despite a 1-3 start, fans can look at the bright side about things, as Zeller has been playing very well for the Hornets.

Zeller has started this season by picking up three double-doubles. Hes not played all four games because he missed the second game of the season against the Minnesota Timberwolves due to personal reasons.

So far this season, Zeller is averaging 16.0 points and 13.0 rebounds per game. Hes also averaging 30.3 minutes per game; the amount of playing time hes received is a career-high.

Cody Zeller has also has made four three-pointers so far this season, and hes shooting 44% from beyond the arc. Zeller is also close to surpassing the number of threes he made last season (he made only six).

Zeller is averaging new career-highs in many categories so far, and he seems just to get better each game. His play has surprised many fans after the ammount of playing time that hes recently missed.

Out of the past two seasons, Zeller has missed 82 games due to various injuries. Fans are hoping that they can keep Zeller on the court since hes averaging these career-high numbers.

The amount of effort that Zeller gives when hes on the court is unmatched. In the teams loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday, Zeller took a hard shot to the face by Anthony Davis, got stitches, and then got right back on the court.

To me, hes a warrior when hes on the court, and his health is essential for his future success this season. If Zeller can remain healthy, he can potentially finish this season with new career statistics.

Its exciting to see Zeller finally show what hes worth after he re-signed with Charlotte in 2017 on a $56 million deal. The veteran is set to become an unrestricted free agent following the 2020-21 season.

Zeller has a chance to break more personal records on Wednesday night against the Sacramento Kings. Its safe to say that Zeller will be the best center playing between the two teams, as the Kings frontcourt is not as good as last season.

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Charlotte Hornets: Cody Zeller is paving the way for a career year - Swarm and Sting

All investing strategies have pros and cons. Take, for example, the stock market: The buying and selling of securities is an established way to make money. But along with the potential quick gains of the stock market comes a lot of risks. Stocks can jump up or take a fast dive in a day. And you, as the investor, have no control over what happens, how it happens or when it happens. It is entirely speculative.

Or, consider real estate: Many fortunes have been made in real estate, and it is a favorite among investors for many reasons. But real estate has its drawbacks. A successful investment in the real estate market requires specific knowledge. Unlike stocks, you cant simply look at the investments history and make an educated guess. You have to know the area, the comparables and the best use. Without this intimate knowledge, investment in real estate becomes a high-risk venture.

And then there are cryptocurrencies, the new frontier. What the future holds for this opportunity is yet to be realized. Weve seen significant advances in cryptocurrency over the past few years, and yet there are already rumors that the market is entering a bubble. As with all other options, theres the potential of making a fantastic return, but theres also a chance of a crash and burn.

With any investment, whether its as old as dirt or new as a snippet of code, the same questions will arise: What is the potential, and what are the risks? This leads us to business opportunities where we ask: Are they a viable investment, and if so, why?

The Business Investment

As a business advisor at a mergers and acquisitions firm, I believe a business opportunity is an often-overlooked investment, but one that can satisfy the unknowns so common to other investment opportunities. The investment in a business is an investment in you.

Buying a business is a way of investing your dollars and your talents. Its investing in your future where you control the variables. A business exists to make money, and it does that actively, by your direct input.

Unlike the stock market, which is mostly speculative, a business has variables that you control. Unlike real estate, a business is not passive, but one in which you actively generate profits. And unlike cryptocurrency, a business has an established system, where proven, specific practices bring favorable results.

When you buy a business, you are buying into yourself. You set the hours, you hire the employees, you create relationships with vendors. You oversee the financials, you make investments in equipment. The success has more to do with your personal innovation, creativity and skill than any other variable.

So how to buy a business that makes a great investment? Here are a few things to keep in mind as you begin your search:

The business must be in demand.

This might seem obvious, but a lot of people run a business because they like doing a particular thing. From my perspective, this is confusing a hobby with a business and is not always a path to success. For a business to be a wise investment, there needs to be a significant demand for its products or services. Yes, find something you like and can pour your heart into, but make sure there is a real and ongoing need for what the business produces.

The business must be improvable or innovative.

You can run a successful business essentially in two ways: improve existing operations or develop an innovative service or product.

Improve: When you buy a business, chances are it will already have things in place to generate profits. But the whole idea of buying a business is to improve it. You take what is currently working and make it better. You might hire some new staff, work deals with vendors, drop one product and start another.

Theres a myriad of things you can do to improve a business. The point is, the improvement is entirely dependent upon you because businesses are about people. Countless people have changed a business operation into something better and generated lots of money in doing so.

Innovate: Developing a new product or service is another way to build a successful business. Anything people want that can be practically produced is a business waiting to happen. Millions of successful businesses have grown out of this basic concept.

What useful product or service needs to be created and sold? How can that be produced efficiently and effectively? The successful Wrigley Company is known for its chewing gum, but that is not how it started. Wrigley sold other products and added a pack of gum as an extra gift. Over time, the owners discovered the popularity of the gum and changed operations to primarily produce gum. It was that decision that turned Wrigley into a household name and a huge success.

The business must be scalable.

Scalability is a phrase thrown around a lot in business circles. Essentially, scalability refers to a businesss ability to grow and then manage that growth. Some businesses are great at being small. They might fit perfectly into a niche market. But for a business investment to make sense, the business must be scalable. If it can be grown, profit will be commensurate with the growth.

If a business buyer plans to grow a business, he or she will want to scale the business over time, expanding into other markets and other regions. This is precisely what makes the investment a sound investment.

Summary

There are many different types of investments, all with pros and cons because of some unforeseen elements. The purchase of a business opportunity, though often overlooked by people planning their financial future, presents a few opportunities to retain control, which makes it an attractive investment. Foremost, however, the business investment is an investment in you as a person. It capitalizes on your direct input to create success. And ultimately, I believe the best investments are always investments in people.

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Why A Business Opportunity Might Be A Wise Investment - Forbes

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. --On Wednesday evening,Alabama coach Nick Sabanheld his first and only press conference of the Crimson Tide's second of two bye weeks. Below is everything Saban said during his post-practice press conference at the Mal M. Moore Athletic Facility.

Sorry Im late, but we had a little function with some alumni people who support the program, and we really do appreciate what they do. It really helps us to be able to provide the resources to have the kind of program that can help our players be more successful in life relative to personal development, academic support, career development, development on the field as players, so all these things are really important.

Tuesday and Wednesday practices has gone well. The players seem to be working hard to try to improve, which is the No. 1 goal of what we would like to do. Weve also been able to expose them to some things theyre going to see down the road, which is also something that is a goal for this week and trying to create a balance between getting some guys healthy, resting them, not asking them to do too much so that maybe we can get a little healthier for this sort of stretch run at the end of the season here with some very challenging games coming up. Well practice tomorrow and move everything up an hour tomorrow, and then well give the players off a couple days. Hopefully, itll be a good break for them.

I know youre going to ask me about injuries. I think I addressed the Miller Forristall thing, which was something that really just came up on Monday that was really unexpected. But he is doing well. Tua was able -- took some snaps today in practice, did a few things on air, was not involved in any team situations. And again, this is going to be a day-by-day, game-day decision. Theres nothing really else that I can say about it. I can tell you that his mentality has been really good in terms of how hes working, the things that hes doing and how hes progressing and his attitude toward trying to get back on the field and trying to progress. So, thats always a good sign.

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Everything Nick Saban said in only press conference of bye week - 247Sports

Allyson Felix is a mom, businesswoman and Olympic sprinter who won her 12th gold medal at a track-and-field world championship last month.

Her win, which came just 10 months after giving birth to her daughter Camryn, broke Usain Bolt's record for the most track-and-field gold medals at a world championship.

Though the 33-year-old has seen a lot of success in her career, she says there is one piece of advice she wishes she knew as a young athlete who was turning pro. "I look back at when I did my first deal at 17 to where I am now," she told CNBC Make It at a recent event for personal finance company SoFi, "and I wish I was being more present in those conversations and had more knowledge about what was going on in the negotiation process."

Allyson Felix of the United States competes in the 4x400 Metres Mixed Relay during day three of 17th IAAF World Athletics Championships Doha 2019 at Khalifa International Stadium on September 29, 2019 in Doha, Qatar.

Maja Hitij | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

Like many athletes, Felix said she relied solely on her agent at the start of her career to negotiate all of her business deals. "You know, you're coming in either straight from college or even younger than that, and you don't have experience in this," she said. "So, you don't know what to ask for. A lot of times I think we're just grateful to get offered something."

But being grateful for any deal that comes your way can be problematic, she said, especially when you don't know the details of the contract. Earlier this year, Felix penned an op-ed for The New York Times where she opened up about her experience with renegotiating her contract with Nike as a pregnant athlete.

Despite being one of the most decorated athletes in history, Felix said Nike wanted to pay her 70% less than before, and they didn't want to offer her maternity protection during the months following her child's birth. "I asked Nike to contractually guarantee that I wouldn't be punished if I didn't perform at my best in the months surrounding childbirth," she wrote. "I wanted to set a new standard. If I, one of Nike's most widely marketed athletes, couldn't secure these protections, who could?"

After facing a lot of backlash for its policies surrounding female athletes, Nike later announced that it was updating its contracts to protect its pregnant clients more. Under the new terms, the sportswear brand said that no performance-related reductions could take place for an 18-month period, starting eight months prior to a woman's due date.

Nike did not immediately respond to Make It's request for comment.

Felix, who signed a new sponsorship deal with Athleta in July, said her experience with Nike taught her that you have to be ready to negotiate for more than just money.

"I'm excited about this new partnership deal, and it's different," she told the crowd at SoFi's "Get That Raise" event. "I had been with Nike for so long, and I really don't think they thought I would leave the brand. But, I realized there are things that are more valuable than money."

College and career coach Kat Cohen agrees with Felix and explained that even if you aren't an athlete, you should still consider more than just money when negotiating with an employer.

"You should look at compensation holistically," she told CNBC Make It. "This means reviewing the retirement savings, paid time off, commuter benefits and whatever other benefits are offered."

Cohen added that in some cases, such as with tuition reimbursement, your benefits can actually help to cut down your monthly payments on a bill. In this situation, she said, it should not be a deal breaker if a company can't increase your pay.

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Don't miss: 8 successful women share how they negotiated their first big raiseand the advice they'd give others looking to do the same

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12-time gold medalist Allyson Felix on the negotiating advice she wishes she knew at the start of her career - CNBC

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We hire for success but fire for failure. We promote people with the best education and experience and then complain that they cant lead their teams, build coalitions or resolve conflict. We think of people as great leaders and then get disappointed when they dont know how to manage. Disastrous hiring and performance management methodologies are causing organizations, leaders and employees to fail.

Both sides are unhappy. Employees arent being set up for success, and supervisors report being drastically dissatisfied with employee performance. The Eagle Hill National Attrition Survey found that employers end up with average or low performers 75% of the time. This is a huge problem. We employers, hiring managers and supervisors get too excited about what people promise and too disappointed when they dont deliver.

This is the bitter truth about why people fail to succeed in their jobs.

We know that the most effective leaders and employees demonstrate superior skills in communication, conflict resolution, critical thinking, ethics and emotional intelligence. Soft skills trump hard ones, but we dont hire for them. Instead, we still prioritize candidate rankings by experience, education and school brands.

Education and experience matter, and depending on the job, hard skills such as budgeting, writing, software design, typing, engineering, etc. really matter. Hard skills are important considerations when making hiring and promotion decisions. I consider these factors when making hiring decisions, and depending on the position, the minimum education and experience requirements may be rather non-negotiable. However, the bitter truth is that soft skills provide a better metric than education and experience ever will for assessing performance and predicting success. Highly educated and very experienced employees get fired every day because they fail to demonstrate critical soft skills.

Ive worked with thousands of supervisors and executives, and they are not talking about how they need to hire people with higher levels of education and more experience. No, that is not their challenge. They tell me that they desperately need to get people who will demonstrate better behavior. They want people who can communicate better. They want people who can resolve conflicts better. They want people who think critically and who ask thoughtful questions. They want people who are ethical and demonstrate integrity. They want emotionally intelligent people who are self-aware, reflective, disciplined and motivated. They want people who will give feedback and are also happy to receive it.

Work experience is not a substitute for soft skills unless the hiring manager is able to design and apply metrics to evaluate the development level of specific soft skills. Also, a college degree cant substitute for soft skills. Supervisors and managers report that they want employees who are intentional about behavior, and a degree only shows that an employee was intentional about an accomplishment.

We can hire people for what they know (for all their education and experience), but they will fail if they dont make it a priority to manage their behaviors. Following is a list of reasons a cross-section of directors, managers and supervisors shared with me during a meeting on performance management systems.

I asked the group of about 200 to share the real reasons that they either fired, refused to promote or downgraded a performance review on an employee within the prior two years. This is an aggregate list (in order of number of responses) for what they provided.

Employees were fired, not promoted or rated poorly because they

As you probably noticed, the lack of a college degree and a lack of prior work experience arent listed as mitigating factors. It is clear that most identified issues are directly connected to deficiencies in soft skills and behavior rather than any education or experience deficiency.

Organizations absolutely have to create and apply better hiring and performance management methodologies.

Sure, employees are responsible for their own behavior, but they are not responsible for establishing the behavior or performance standards which they will ultimately be evaluated against. More often than not, the directors and managers in the group reported to me that they didnt have clearly defined performance standards and metrics for behavior or soft skills. The really couldnt properly develop or evaluate an employee for these aspects of the job, so they would find other justifiable reasons and ways to deal with the employee without ever really dealing with soft-skill deficiencies.

The bitter truth is that weve got to do better. Organizational leaders must design and apply methodologies for hiring and for effectively evaluating and managing performance. The organization deserves better. The struggling supervisors deserve better. The employees deserve better. The customers deserve better.

Organizational leaders can do better by taking these action steps:

We hire for experience, but we dont fire for it. We hire for a degree, but we dont fire for it. We hire for a particular certification, but we dont fire for it (except in instances where the person has lied about it). And we dont mitigate poor performance as a result of these credentials. Most, if not all, factors that contribute to poor performance and/or employee terminations correspond to deficiencies in soft skills and human behavior.

Until we align the primary hiring factors to the primary firing factors, nothing will change.

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The Bitter Truth About Why People Fail To Succeed In Their Jobs - Forbes

Casey Michel is a writer living in New York, and his writing has been published in outlets like Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, and The New Republic, among others. He can be followed on Twitter at @cjcmichel.

Until the election of Donald Trump, no sitting president had ever requested a foreign governments help to discredit a political rival. Coupled with Trumps appeal to Russia during the 2016 campaign that Moscow use its cyber power to uncover Hillary Clintons missing emails, not to mention his eldest sons eagerness to accept anti-Clinton material from Kremlin allies, Trumps willingness to allow foreign governments to influence American elections is historically unprecedented.

Just how unprecedented becomes clear when you look back at the long history of attempts by foreign powers (almost always Russia) to tip an outcome to their advantage. On multiple occasions since the start of the Cold War, Moscow has proffered money, dirt and manpower to undermine a candidate perceived to be harmful to their interests. But in nearly every instance, the interference never came to pass. And this is the starkest difference between Trump and other presidential candidatesand between Trump and every one of his presidential predecessors. Where Trump has welcomed such assistanceand, in the case of his controversial call to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, demanded itother candidates, to a man, rejected the aid.

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What these examples show is that across parties and across decadeswhether or not there were laws in place banning the foreign aidaspirants to the nations highest office recognized the impropriety of the offers. Even as they knew how valuable it might be to them, especially as challengers, they understood that accepting the assistance would compromise them and the underpinnings of American democracy, should they win.

I cant think of any precedent for this kind of prima facie corrupt action on the part of an American president, Brad Simpson, an associate history professor at the University of Connecticut with a focus on U.S. foreign policy, said. I think that [this is] a president whose whole political life has been prone to conspiracy theories, but who now has the apparatus of the executive branch to try and do something about itand thats whats really novel.

Or as Dov Levin, an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong and renowned expert on American interference efforts, told me. For a sitting president to do that, if its confirmed, would be something which is new, thats for sure.

We have known for decades that when it comes to foreign interference efforts, campaigns are the front-linethe first targeted, and the first to know. And for decades, the campaigns refusals have stopped interference efforts in their tracks. As we already know, hostile regimes such as Russia successfully injected themselves into the 2016 electionwithout asking permissioncoaxing armed white supremacists onto the street, stealing internal emails and planting fake news stories, and creating some of the most popular social media feeds during the election. And Russia is almost certainly gaming out how to reprise its efforts in 2020. The difference now is that the interference, after decades, has been sanctioned by the president himself.

***

For most of U.S. history, other countries have largely resisted the impulse to meddle in our affairs, both out of indifference and a desire not to get on the wrong side of the other political party. There were a handful of examples in our republics early daysin 1796, in 1812of American officials reaching out to British or French counterparts to try to coax them into interfering in upcoming elections. (The historical record doesnt make it clear exactly which Americans these were, but none, obviously, were sitting presidents.) But those requests for foreign help went nowhere, and for decades afterward, European governments paid little thought to helping, say, Ulysses S. Grant or Grover Cleveland earn a second term in office.

It wasnt until after World War II that these interference efforts, driven by foreign capitals, began in earnest. By then, Americas role on the global stage had never been greater. And its primary adversary, led by a paranoid clique sitting in the Kremlin, began probing for weaknesses in Americas electoral defenses, and began looking for American candidates willing to brook foreign interference.

Henry Wallace, commerce secretary under Harry Truman, was the first candidate Moscow targeted for support, back in 1948. Broadly sympathetic to Soviet designs, Wallace set the tone for his pro-Soviet views early. The first thing we have evidence for is, in Oct. 1945, when he was still the secretary of commerce, Wallace contacted the NKVD [the forerunner to the KGB] station chief in Washington, basically telling him that the people who support him are fighting for Trumans soul, and that other people in the Truman administration are more anti-Soviet, Levin said. He basically asked, Come and help meIll be an agent of influence to make sure there will be better policies. He basically believed that [Joseph] Stalin and the Soviets had benign intentions.

Wallace carried those beliefs into the 1948 election, as the head of the third-party Progressive Party. A clear longshotthink of his run as something closer to Jill Stein, rather than Donald TrumpWallace made rapprochement with the USSR a key plank. A few months before the election, Wallace thundered in New Yorks Madison Square Garden about the need to decrease tensions between Moscow and Washington. And he immediately got a public show of support from the man presiding over the Soviet Unions efforts at ethnic cleansing, totalitarian designs, and destruction of nascent democracies across Eastern Europe: Stalin.

Stalin wrote a letter, published in newspapers across the U.S., that was straightforward. Wallaces call for easing tension was the most important political platform of recent times, the Soviet dictator wrote. As far as the government of the USSR is concerned, we believe that the program of Wallace could be a good and fruitful foundation for such understanding and for the development of international cooperation.The Soviet tyrants praise immediately reverberated. It was a big commotion, Levin said. [Stalins letter] dominated news for a whole month, with some people hoping it would end the Cold War before it started. More pertinently, Wallace wasnt surprised to receive the show of support; thanks to back channels between Wallaces supporters, members of the U.S. Communist Party, and Soviet partners, Stalin had let him know ahead of time that the letter was in the works, Levin added.

The missive didnt do much for Wallaces chances; the former commerce secretarys campaign barely registered during the 1948 election and failed to carry a single state. But to Moscow, that didnt necessarily matter. The seed of interfering in American elections was planteda plan that, over the coming decades, would try to take root time and again, but only succeed once Donald Trump announced his campaign for the presidency.

***

In 1960, with the Cold War in full bloom, the Soviet ambassador, Mikhail Menshikov, arranged a sit-down meeting with perennial Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson. According to Stevensons recollections, Menshikov got right to the point, pulling a slip of paper from his pocket with a message from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

We are concerned with the future, and that America has the right President, Menshikov dictated. All countries are concerned with the American election. It is impossible for us not to be concerned about our future and the American Presidency which is so important to everybody everywhere. The Soviet ambassador continued, unspooling Khrushchevs offer:

Because we know the ideas of Mr. Stevenson, we in our hearts all favor him. And you Ambassador Menshikov must ask him which way we could be of assistance to those forces in the United States which favor friendly relations. We dont know how we can help to make relations better and help those to succeed in political life who wish for better relations and more confidence. Could the Soviet press assist Mr. Stevensons personal success? How? Should the press praise him, and, if so, for what? Should it criticize him, and, if so, for what? (We can always find many things to criticize Mr. Stevenson for because he has said many harsh and critical things about the Soviet Union and Communism!) Mr. Stevenson will know best what would help him.

Stevenson, according to his notes, blanched. Following Menshikovs bid, Stevenson offered his thanks for this expression of Khrushchevs confidence. But the red line Menshikov had crossed was undeniable: [I detailed my] grave misgivings about the propriety or wisdom of any interference, direct or indirect, in the American election, Stevenson said. I said to him that even if I was a candidate I could not accept the assistance proffered. I believe I made it clear to him that I considered the offer of such assistance highly improper, indiscreet and dangerous to all concerned.

Rejected by Stevenson, Moscow turned elsewhere. As Christopher Andrew detailed in The Sword and the Shield, his 700-page run-through of documents smuggled from former KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin, Khrushchev especially feared the election of Republican nominee and Cold War hawk Richard Nixon. (Nixon would leave a trail of ignominy not only for his eventual resignation, but also, in a nod to Trump and Russia in 2016, for his willingness as a candidate to set up back channels with South Vietnamese partners in the run-up to the 1968 election.) The KGB resident in Washington, Alexander Feklisov, received orders from the Kremlin to propose diplomatic or propaganda initiatives, or any other measures, to facilitate [John F.] Kennedys victory. As Feklisov added in his autobiography, his mission centered on providing ideas to Moscow that could help secure a Kennedy victory. The details on Feklisovs and Moscows ideas remain scantyet another casualty of Moscows unwillingness to allow access to archival materialbut we do know that, as part of his mission, Feklisov reached out directly to those surrounding Robert Kennedy, JFKs lead campaign surrogate. But the Kremlin again got nowhere; as Andrew wrote, Feklisov and his teams offers of help were politely rebuffed.

Nixon, of course, lost that 1960 election. But when he stood again eight years laterwith Leonid Brezhnev, the man whose policies of stagnation would eventually erode Soviet power, now overseeing the KremlinMoscow espied another opportunity. As Anatoly Dobrynin, Moscows man in Washington, detailed in his 2001 memoir, the Kremlin cooked up an idea to tilt the election once more in the Democrats favor.

Our leadership [in Moscow] was growing seriously concerned that [Nixon] might win the election, Dobrynin wrote. As a result, the top Soviet leaders took an extraordinary step, unprecedented in the history of Soviet-American relations, by secretly offering [Democratic candidate Hubert] Humphrey any conceivable help in his election campaignincluding financial aid. Dobrynin led the effort, breakfasting during the campaign with Humphrey himself. As the conversation wound toward the state of Humphreys campaigns finances, the candidate quickly discerned what was on offerand immediately put a stop to it. He knew at once what was going on, Dobrynin wrote. He told me it was more than enough for him to have Moscows good wishes which he highly appreciated. The matter was thus settled to our mutual relief, never to be discussed again.

But that wouldnt be the end of the Kremlins offers of aid. With Yuri Andropov as premier in 1983the man whose untimely demise would eventually give rise to Mikhail Gorbachev and to the dissolution of the Soviet Union itselfKGB leadership directed those overseeing American operations to begin planning active measures to ensure [Ronald] Reagans defeat in the [1984] presidential election, writes Andrew. Per the smuggled KGB archival documents, KGB agents were directed to acquire contacts on the staffs of all possible presidential candidates and in both party headquarters. And it wasnt just limited to the U.S.; KGB residencies outside the United States were told to report on the possibility of sending agents to take part in this operation. [KGB leadership] made it clear that any candidate, of either party, would be preferable to Reagan.

With KGB archives from this period remaining effectively inaccessible, the details of these 1983-84 operations remain murky. (KGB residencies around the world were ordered to popularize the slogan Reagan Means War!, Andrew wrote, highlighting one of the few particulars we know about.) However, theres no evidence that any campaigns opposing Reagan ever took the bait. If anything, Andrew added, Reagans landslide victory in the 1984 election was striking evidence of the limitations of Soviet active measures within the United States.

The Soviet Union, weighed down by a crumbling economy and fractured by nationalist movements, didnt last much longer. But Moscows presence in American elections, even during the 1990s, didnt collapse alongside the Soviet implosion. As The New York Times reported this month, a trio of Republican representatives came to President George H.W. Bush in the lead-up to the 1992 election with an idea: reaching out to the Kremlin directly for dirt on Bill Clinton, nipping his opposition campaign in the bud.

But like Stevenson, Kennedy, and Humphrey before him, Bush and his inner circle balked. They wanted us to contact the Russians to seek information on Bill Clintons trip to Moscow, James A. Baker III, Bushs White House chief of staff, wrote in a memo. I said we absolutely could not do that. Baker shut the conversation down, and with it any consideration of reaching out to Russia for help in tilting an American election. Shortly thereafter, Clinton won, resoundingly. And he brought with him a First Lady who, a quarter-century later, would be on the receiving end of unprecedented interference efforts out of that same Kremlinand who would face an opponent in Donald Trump who had no problems accepting Moscows offers of help, and who would become the first sitting president to toss the floodgates open, with all comers, and all interference, now welcome.

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Russia's Long and Mostly Unsuccessful History of Election Interference - POLITICO

Video games were invented for humans, by humans. But that doesn't necessarily mean we're the best when it comes to playing them.

In a new achievement that signifies just how far artificial intelligence (AI) has progressed, scientists have developed a learning algorithm that rose to the very top echelon of the esports powerhouse StarCraft II, reaching Grandmaster level.

According to the researchers who created the AI called AlphaStar the accomplishment of reaching the Grandmaster League means you're in the top 0.2 percent of StarCraft II players.

In other words, AlphaStar competes at a level in this multi-player real-time strategy game that could trounce millions of humans foolhardy enough to take it on.

In recent years, we've seen AI come to dominate games that represent more traditional tests of human skill, mastering the strategies of chess, poker, and Go.

For David Silver, principal research scientist at AI firm DeepMind in the UK, those kinds of milestones many of which DeepMind pioneered are what's led us to this inevitable moment: a game representing even greater problems than the ancient games that have challenged human minds for centuries.

"Ever since computers cracked Go, chess, and poker, StarCraft has emerged by consensus as the next grand challenge," Silver says.

"The game's complexity is much greater than chess, because players control hundreds of units; more complex than Go, because there are 1,026 possible choices for every move; and players have less information about their opponents than in poker."

Add it all together and mastering the complex real-time battles of StarCraft seems almost impossible for a machine, so how did they do it?

In a new paper published this week, the DeepMind team describes how they developed a multi-agent reinforcement learning algorithm, which trained itself up through self-play, including playing against itself, and playing humans, learning to mimic successful strategies, and also effective counter-strategies.

The research team has been working towards this goal for years. An earlier version of the system made headlines back in January when it started to beat human professionals.

"I will never forget the excitement and emotion we all felt when AlphaStar first started playing real competitive matches," says Dario "TLO" Wunsch, one of the top human StarCraft II players beaten by the algorithm.

"The system is very skilled at assessing its strategic position, and knows exactly when to engage or disengage with its opponent."

The latest algorithm takes things even further than that preliminary incarnation, and now effectively plays under artificial constraints designed to most realistically simulate gameplay as experienced by a human (such as observing the game at a distance, through a camera, and feeling the delay of network latency).

With all the imposed limitations of a human, AlphaStar still reached Grandmaster level in real, online competitive play, representing not just a world-first, but perhaps a sunset of these kinds of gaming challenges, given what the achievement now may make possible.

"Like StarCraft, real-world domains such as personal assistants, self-driving cars, or robotics require real-time decisions, over combinatorial or structured action spaces, given imperfectly observed information," the authors write.

"The success of AlphaStar in StarCraft II suggests that general-purpose machine learning algorithms may have a substantial effect on complex real-world problems."

The findings are reported in Nature.

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StarCraft II Has a New Grandmaster, And It's Not Human - ScienceAlert