Ted Cruz Wants the World to Know 'Ted Cruz Didn't Lose'
It wasn’t Ted Cruz, folks. Instead, as the failed presidential candidate says in a video titled “No Regrets,” it was the campaign for a president that lost. The video, produced very much like a campaign promo, features Cruz encouraging supporters and reminding them of Ronald Reagan’s own road to presidency. There’s even a shot of a woman crying as Cruz gives his inspirational speech. It wraps up with a few shots of smiling supporters, some rocking music and Cruz’s bus zooming down a highway with the “To Be Continued” message to viewers. [Advertising Age]
Woman Mistaken As Transgender Harassed in a Walmart Restroom
Aimee Toms, who sports a pixie cut, was washing her hands in Walmart restroom when a woman told her she didn’t belong there. Toms, who isn’t transgender, took great offense and posted a video on Youtube in outrage of the treatment of transgendered people. [News Times]
Nigerian Girl Kidnapped by Boko Haram Found Alive Two Years Later
One of the teenagers kidnapped by Boko Haram extremists in Nigeria in 2014 was found alive this week. She’s the first to be recovered out of the 219 girls who went missing after a mass abduction at a boarding school, the Associated Press reports. The 19-year-old was found wandering with her baby on Tuesday, and the Nigerian military says they rescued her along with a Boko Haram suspect who claimed to be her husband. [AP]
The Long Rescue: A Man’s Search For His Kidnapped Children
This is a heartbreaking story of an Indian man’s three sons who were kidnapped, tricked into forced labor in Nepal, and his search to get them back. [Harpers]
New Yorkers Have, And Always Will, Wear Black
“We wear black because we’re not tourists here to see a show; because we are, in a sense, with the band. The band is New York, and the color is black.” [New York Magazine]
Robin Wright Pulled a Claire Underwood and Demanded Equal Pay
When Robin Wright discovered her character on “House of Cards” was more popular than Kevin Spacey’s, she decided she could no longer stand being paid less than her male co-star. In a power move that would make her strong-willed counterpart proud, Wright threatened bad media exposure if the studio failed to compensate her, the actress revealed in a recent talk at the Rockefeller Center. “I was like, ‘You better pay me or I’m going to go public,’” she said. “And they did.” [Huffington Post]
Men Are Giving Bad Reviews for TV Shows Aimed at Women
FiveThirtyEight analyzed IMDB review data and found that men are more likely to give a television show a bad rating than women are, and their online opinions for shows aimed primarily at women — “Sex and the City,” for example — are driving down those show’s ratings. [FiveThirtyEight]
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s Greenwich Village Studio Is Now Open to the Public
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s MacDougal Alley Studio was the original Whitney Museum. Back in 1907, newspapers were shocked that Whitney, a daughter of an extremely wealthy family, would choose to set up shop in a “dingy New York alley.” Art blog Hyperallergic has that and more background on the studio and on Whitney as an artist and a patron of the arts, along with a slew of photos in case you can’t make it to one of the public tours yourself. [Hyperallergic]
The Economics Behind All These New TV Shows
In case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of television shows being created these days, with every outlet from TBS to Amazon jumping into the game of making original content. Vulture takes a look at how this has impacted everyone in the industry — actors, writers, showrunners and crews — as well as whether or not this explosion in production can be sustained. [Vulture]
Is President Obama A Secret Metalhead?
At a recent state dinner with representatives of Nordic countries, Obama lauded Finland for its good governance, as well as having the most metal bands per capita in the world. [WNYC]
This column was compiled by DNAinfo reporters Carolina Pichardo, Eddie Small, Allegra Hobbs, Camille Bautista, Noah Hurowitz, Shaye Weaver, Irene Plagianos, Jeanmarie Evelly, Nikhita Venugopal and Danielle Tcholakian.
