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John McCain memorial: Obama says McCain was ‘a warrior, a statesman, a patriot’
At Sen. John McCain’s memorial Saturday at the National Cathedral in Washington DC, Former U.S. president Barack Obama eulogized the late senator.
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Former U.S. President Barack Obama eulogized Sen. John McCain at the late senator’s memorial Saturday at the National Cathedral in Washington DC.
“We come to celebrate an extraordinary man — a warrior, a statesman, a patriot,” Obama said.
Obama recalled McCain calling him earlier this year, asking him to speak at the event after his death. It was a “precious and singular honor.” And it was a move that Obama said showed McCain’s sense of humor.
“What better way to get the last laugh than to get George and I to say nice things about him to a national audience?” Obama said, referencing McCain’s request that George W. Bush also speak at the event.
As the GOP nominee in 2008, McCain lost to Obama. In McCain’s concession speech at the Arizona Biltmore, he graciously spoke of the significance of Obama’s win, as the first African-American to hold the presidency.
McCain’s personal invitation to Bush, and to former President Barack Obama, to speak at the memorial service, was as much a gesture toward bipartisanship as was his pointed refusal to invite President Donald Trump.
Former President George W. Bush, John McCain’s one-time bitter political rival, recalled the late senator Saturday as a man who loved freedom, detested the abuse of power and wasn’t afraid to take on anyone, including presidents.
“He was honest, no matter who it offended,” Bush said in his eulogy at the National Cathedral. “Presidents were not spared. He was honorable, always recognizing that his opponents were patriots and human beings.”
McCain’s personal invitation to Bush, and to former President Barack Obama, to speak at the memorial service, was as much a gesture toward bipartisanship as was his pointed refusal to invite President Donald Trump.
“John was above all, a man with a code,” he said. “He lived by a set of virtues.”
“He loved freedom with a passion of a man who knew its absence,” he said.
Bush said that McCain always recognized that his opponents “were still patriots and human beings.”
Above all, the former president said, “he detested the abuse of power, he could not abide bigots, and swaggering despots.”
The invitation by McCain to Bush to deliver a eulogy was especially striking, given the animosity between the two men over the 2000 GOP primary.
In that contest, McCain — riding the “Straight Talk Express” — had come out of nowhere to take the New Hampshire primary that year and faced a critical re-match with Bush in South Carolina.
Bush won that bruising battle that was marked by scurrilous, racially tinged attacks on McCain. Among them, a whisper campaign that McCain had fathered a black child out of wedlock. McCain’s dark-skinned daughter, Bridget, was adopted from Bangladesh, but the subrosa attacks may well have played a role in McCain’s defeat in that southern bastion.
During a heated break at one South Carolina debate, Bush apparently tried to mollify McCain by saying he knew nothing about the origin of the rumors, at one point grasping McCain’s hands. To which McCain barked, according to Time magazine, “Don’t give me that s—t. And take your hands off me.”
Bush recalled the one-time strain between the two political warhorses during that period, saying that “for John and me, there was a personal journey, our hard-fought political history.”
“Back in the day, he could frustrate me, and I know he’d say the same thing about me,” Bush said to laughter from the congregation. “But he also made me better.”
Eventually, he said, their bitter rivalry “melted away.”
“I got to enjoy one of life’s great gifts,” Bush said. “The friendship of John McCain, and I’ll miss him.”
Bush said McCain was a passionate defender of fairness and justice, who would take on presidents and admirals to “stand up for the little guy.”
“Those is political power were not exempt,” the former president said. “We will remember him as he was: unwavering, undimmed, unequaled.”
If you find a formula that works, why mess with it? That philosophy applies to a lot of things in life, but also apparently to Oscar season. After all, two years ago, Damien Chazelle made a deafening awards-campaign splash when he unveiled his retro-modern musical La La Land at the Venice Film Festival. But before had a chance to enjoy a celebratory glass of champagne at Harry’s Bar, he hopped on a plane to Colorado and introduced its U.S. premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. We all know how that went. He won the Oscar for Best Picture – well, for a couple of minutes at least. This week, he followed the same playbook with his technically dazzling Neil Armstrong biopic First Man. On Aug. 29, the film wowed audiences at Venice, unofficially kicking off the long march to the Academy Awards, and two nights later, slightly bleary-eyed, he stood in front of a packed house at Telluride no doubt hoping for a little deja-vu, albeit with a slightly happier ending.
First things first: Chazelle’s new film is about the early days of NASA and the fits and starts that led up to the Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, making his famous “one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind.” That thumbnail may immediately bring to mind easy comparisons to, say, The Right Stuff or Apollo 13. But First Man isn’t like either of those films. It’s very much its own thing – part harrowing and exilhirating space epic on a grand canvas and part intimate character study in miniature. And while both of those elements are stunning, especially when you consider just how early Chazelle is in his career behind the camera, the character sections are slightly less successful.
Let me be clear, I think that the movie is a remarkable cinematic achievement on many different levels. And it has moments of cosmic visual grandeur that rival Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. But Armstrong, who always shunned excessive personal credit and really any sort of publicity, was always an inherently unknowable man. Maybe the most enigmatic and mysterious true American hero this country has ever produced. And First Man, as great and enthralling as it is, never convincingly solves the mystery of Armstrong. It presents theories and interesting psychological conjecture (namely the wounds left by the death of his baby daughter to cancer) about what made the astronaut tick, but I’m not certain they paint the full picture. Armstrong was a riddle and to try to demystify that riddle the way that Chazelle and writer Josh Singer have doesn’t always feel fully convincing. It’s a portrait of a cipher.
Still, First Man couldn’t arrive at a better time. It’s a stirring reminder of a more high-minded era in our nation’s history when we led the world by the boldness of our ambition. Or, in the words of John F. Kennedy which are quoted in the film, doing things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. It’s amazing Armstrong’s mission ever got as far as it did in the first place, especially when you lay your eyes on the cramped, rattling rocket ships loaded with analog dials and minute computing power that NASA strapped its team of high-test guinea pigs into. Chazelle captures with eerie adrenalin and dread just how dangerous these death-defying missions were. But then, after they pierce the atmosphere and a quiet stillness takes over, the act of space exploration takes on an almost transcendental sense of grace. It’s amazing to witness how thin the line is between claustrophobic chaos and weightless serenity.
Chazelle’s La La Land leading man, Ryan Gosling, plays Armstrong as a sort of buttoned-down, bottled-up early ‘60s brainiac square. He’s a wizard of cool control and clear-headedness who’s at home in the cockpit of a test plane of a rocket, but quiet and withholding with his wife (an excellent Claire Foy) and children. Especially after the death of his daughter Karen. The Gemini program, followed by the Apollo missions, seem to be an escape for him – a way to run away from the world. He’s more at peace in space than he ever seems to be on terra firma. Armstrong’s team of astronaut pals and colleagues (which include Jason Clarke, Patrick Fugit, and Corey Stoll, with Kyle Chandler back at Mission Control) can’t seem to reach him – and neither can his wife.
Where the film really comes alive, though, is when it leaves the ground and soars into the heavens with all of its terror, beauty, unpredictability, and majesty. You’ve never seen a movie that captures space flight with this degree of authenticity. It’s literally out of this world. As he makes the seemingly impossible possible, Gosling’s Armstrong is a man obsessed with pushing the boundaries of what mankind is capable of with stoicism and nary a degree of ego. And Gosling lets you see past his fantastic performance into the man’s humanity and humility — his soul. Here’s hoping these two keep working together for years to come.
There are literally dozens of moments of flight in First Man that I’ll be replaying in my head and thinking about for a while (I can’t wait to see it again), like the violent, anxiety-inducing opening sequence when Armstrong manning an X-15 tries over and over again to rip through the Earth’s atmosphere, or when he makes those fateful first steps on the lunar surface in the summer of 1969 and the brief respite of quietude he finds there. I suspect that some will find the film’s closing moments to be a bit too downbeat, too unresolved and untriumphant with respect to the triumph that came before it. It feels like the coda of a ‘70s New Hollywood film in a way. But make no mistake, Chazelle and Gosling have achieved something remarkable with First Man, even if that first man is the last man we feel we truly know. A-
SportsPulse: Trysta Krick goes one-on-one with Tony Romo and discusses what happened with Dez Bryant and the Cowboys, why the preseason will be shortened and if he would ever consider getting back into the game as a coach. USA TODAY
For hundreds of NFL players, Saturday’s roster cutdown deadline (4 p.m. ET) marks the end of the road.
With Week 1 closing in, teams must trim their rosters from approximately 90 players to 53. USA TODAY Sports’ NFL team will track the releases for all 32 NFL teams, as well as list the notable players being let go (listed below).
Cowboys DE Kony Ealy: The 2014 second-round pick didn’t stick in Dallas after the Cowboys took a flier on him in April.
Colts S T.J. Green: A converted receiver, the 2016 second-round pick played both cornerback and safety but struggled at both spots.
Texans P Shane Lechler: A six-time all-pro, Lechler lost out on a competition with rookie Trevor Daniel.
—–
Arizona Cardinals: K Matt McCrane
Atlanta Falcons: CB Leon McFadden, S Ron Parker, OL Austin Pasztor
Baltimore Ravens: CB Robertson Daniel, G/T Andrew Donnal, G Justin Evans, LB Alvin Jones, TE Nick Keizer, DE Christian La Couture, DB Kai Nacua, CB Jacskon Porter, WR DeVier Posey, LS Trent Sieg
Buffalo Bills:
Carolina Panthers: WR Rasheed Bailey, DE Sterling Bailey, RB Kenjon Barner, TE Evan Baylis, OT Adam Bisnowaty, LB Richie Brown, CB Alex Carter, OT Blaine Clausell, S Demetrious Cox, G Quinterrius Eatmon, LB Chris Frey, CB LaDarius Gunter, WR Bug Howard, G Norman Price, TE Jason Reese, TE Cam Seringe, DT Tracy Sprinkle
Chicago Bears:
Cincinnati Bengals: RB Jarveon Williams
Cleveland Browns: TE Stephen Baggett, WR C.J. Board, DB Christian Boutte, DB Elijah Campbell, LB Justin Currie, OL Anthony Fabiano, DL Jeremy Faulk, OL Avery Gennesy, WR Jeff Janis, DL Lenny Jones, OL Fred Lauina, QB Brogan Roback, DB Derron Smith, DL Blaine Woodson
Dallas Cowboys: DE Kony Ealy
Denver Broncos: WR Bryce Bobo, WR Mark Champman, WR John Diarse, OL J.J. Dielman, OT Austin Fleer, CB Michael Hunter, WR Jordan Leslie, DL DeQuinton Osborne, G Jeremiah Poutasi, CB Marcus Rios, LB Marcus Rush, DE Antonio Simmons, DL DeShawn Williams
Detroit Lions: WR Brian Brown, DT Josh Fatu, DE Cam Johnson, TE Marcus Lucas, DB Dexter McDougle, OT Jamar McGloster, LB Chad Meredith, G John Montelus, CB Sterling Moore, WR Teo Redding, DT Christian Ringo, DE Jeremiah Valoaga
Green Bay Packers: RB Bronson Hill,LB Chris Odom, LB Marcus Porter
Houston Texans: P Shane Lechler, OL David Quessenberry
Indianapolis Colts:
Jacksonville Jaguars:
Kansas City Chiefs:
Los Angeles Chargers:
Los Angeles Rams: WR Fred Brown, DT Omarius Bryant, DT Chunky Clements, C Jake Eldrenkamp, K Sam Ficken, DB Nate Holley, DT Lord Hyeamang, G Jeremiah Kolone, DB Afolabo Laguda, OT Cornelius Lucas, DE Marcus Martin, WR Codey McElroy, DB Curtis Mikell, DT McKay Murphy, WR JoJo Natson, C Aaron Neary, DB Taurean Nixon, LB Tegray Scales, WR Kendal Thompson, OT Darrell Williams, DE Brian Womac
Miami Dolphins:
Minnesota Vikings: G Kareem Are, G Kaleb Johnson, WR Cayleb Jones, OT Dieugot Joseph, CB Trevon Mathis, RB Kobe McCrary, FB Luke McNitt, LB Mike Needham, QB Peter Pujals, C J.P. Quinn, WR Korey Robertson, LB Brett Taylor, WR Jake Wieneke
New England Patriots: DE Frank Herron, DB Ryan Lewis, WR Devin Lucien, RB Khalfani Muhammad, WR Paul Turner
New Orleans Saints: G Don Barclay, LB Jayrone Elliott, LB KeShun Freeman, WR Michael Floyd, DT Woodrow Hamilton, DE Alex Jenkins, DE George Johnson, LB Hau’oli Kikaha, DT Henry Mondeaux, DB Robert Nelson, DB Linden Stephens, WR Brandon Tate, G Andrew Tiller, TE Deon Yelder
New York Giants: S Andrew Adams, WR Roger Lewis, CB Chris Lewis-Harris, WR Kalif Raymond, RB Jalen Simmons, QB Alex Tanney
New York Jets: RB George Atkinson, G Alex Balducci, LB David Bass, CB Xavier Coleman, DL Xavier Cooper, FB Dimitri Flowers, OT Antonio Garcia, G Gino Gradkowski, LB Obum Gwacham, OT Darius James, WR Charles Johnson, LB Kevin Minter, DL Kendall Reyes, S Kacy Rodgers II, G Dakoda Shepley, CB Terrell Sinkfield, DL Mych Thomas, QB John Wolford
Oakland Raiders:
Philadelphia Eagles:
Pittsburgh Steelers:
San Francisco 49ers: OL J.P. Flynn, RB Ja’Quan Gardner, G Chris Gonzalez, QB Jack Heneghan, DL Chris Jones, P Jeff Locke, OT Pace Murphy, WR Aldrick Robinson, TE Wes Saxton, DL Will Sutton, OL Darrell Williams, RB Joe Williams
Are small smartphones on their death bed? USA TODAY’s Jefferson Graham tells us why larger smartphones might be here to stay. USA TODAY
Let’s take a moment this weekend to praise and fondly remember the compact smartphone.
The little iPhone SE, with the 4-inch LCD screen, is a classic of another era and seems to be the last of its breed, one we may never see again.
This week, Apple confirmed its next launch event, set for Sept. 12, where the company’s next crop of iPhones are expected to be the biggest ever – 6.5 inches for the top of the line premium model and 6.1 inches for a new, lower-priced, but premium model. That compares to 5.8 inches for the current iPhone X and 5.5 inches for the iPhone 8 Plus.
This megaphone trend has been playing itself out for several years now. Phones are getting larger and larger, and the folks who prefer the small models, well, to them we say that it’s called progress, right?
Beyond the iPhone, the current top-of-the-line Samsung phones are 5.8, 6.2 and 6.4 inches. The best-selling phone in Asia, the Xaomi Redmi Note 5, is 6 inches as well.
Big clearly sells with the public.
pocket sizes are shrinking, clutch handbags are in, I’ll die with my small phone for fashion.
But let’s get real – small has its place, too. A phone such as the SE fits in your pocket snugly. It’s cute. It’s compact. It’s cheap! Apple sells the SE for $350, compared to the largest phone in its current lineup, the iPhone X, which starts at $999.
Apple may sunset the SE with its new product launch, just as it has retired other products of the past (think classic iPod) or features we loved (high on that list is the headphone jack on iPhone and the CD/DVD drive on Mac computers).
I like a big screen as much as the next guy, but, please, I also love diversity and choice. I loved the iPod, others swore by the Blackberry. We miss them. And we’ll miss the small phone, too. Please don’t take it away.
I like the fact that I can put it in my pocket without it falling out… I definitely like the small ones
Using mobile pay services like Apple Pay is faster and more secure. USA TODAY’s Jefferson Graham wonders why more people aren’t using it? Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY
In other tech news this week
• Politicians went after tech. President Donald Trump took on Google this week, saying the search results were biased against conservatives. And former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders went after e-commerce giant Amazon, arguing the company treated its workers unfairly. Both companies fought back, with Amazon denying Sanders’ charges and Google saying its mission is to provide “high quality” content, without any bias.
• In other Google News, the search giant added bilingual features to the Google Assistant, the personal helper found on Android and iOS phones and the Google Home connected speaker. After a quick setup, the Assistant will be able to answer you when you speak to it in any two of these languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese. More languages are to follow. Assuming it works as promised, it will answer in the language you used for the question. The new feature began rolling out this week.
• E-scooters were welcomed back to San Francisco. Scoot and Skip, two companies most folks probably haven’t heard of, were granted one-year permits to operate in the city, while Bird and LIme, the most popular firms, didn’t get approved. The app-accessed electric scooters are still banned in many California cities, including Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach.
• The latest in the Elon Musk saga: He mused publicly in a tweet why a Thai diver hasn’t sued after his initial tweet accusing the diver of being a “pedo” for trying to rescue young boys who were stuck in a Thai cave.
Thanks for checking in with Talking Tech. You can subscribe to the Talking Tech newsletter here: technewsletter.usatoday.com. Also be sure to listen to the daily Talking Tech podcast on Stitcher, Apple and Google podcasts, and follow me (@jeffersongraham) on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have admitted that the bombing of a school bus in Yemen last month – which killed 51 people, including 40 children – was “unjustified”.
A probe by the coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthi rebels concluded on Saturday that “mistakes” had been made in the August 9 air raid in Saada province.
Mansour Ahmed al-Mansour, a legal adviser to the military alliance’s Joint Incident Assessment Team, said that those behind it should be held accountable.
On the day of the bus attack, coalition spokesperson Colonel Turki al-Malki had defended the air raid, saying his forces hit a “legitimate military target”, which included “operators and planners”.
Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from neighbouring Djibouti, said the coalition’s admission marked a “remarkable about-turn”.
“The Saudis and the UAE had earlier said it was a justified and legitimate military operation. They have now talked to the people in the area and they have concluded that it was an unjustified attack, which is a remarkable about-turn from the position that they took just weeks ago,” he said.
Universal condemnation
The probe came after the air attack sparked widespread international condemnation and calls for an independent investigation from the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres.
Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF’s regional director in the Middle East and North Africa, tweeted at the time: “NO EXCUSES ANYMORE!!”
“Does the world really need more innocent children’s lives to stop the cruel war on children in Yemen?” he said.
Following the attack, individual members of the Congress in the United States also called on their country’s army to clarify its role in the war and investigate whether support for the air raids could render US military personnel “liable under the war crimes act”.
The US has been the biggest supplier of military equipment to Riyadh, with more than $90bn of sales recorded between 2010 and 2015.
Saudi Arabia, along with the United Arab Emirates, has been bombing Yemen since March 2015 after the Houthis swept across the country, including the capital, Sanaa. The coalition’s stated aim is to restore the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power.
Out of the 16,000-plus raids they have launched since the start of the conflict, only a handful have been investigated, despite nearly a third of all bombs hitting civilian targets.
Last year, the UN blacklisted the Saudi-UAE alliance for causing the majority of reported child deaths and injuries in Yemen.
This post contains spoilers for the ending of Hereditary
Hereditary was declared not only one of the scariest movies of the decade, but a film that could actually traumatize its viewers.
With its glut of unparalleled performances, masterful cinematography, cryptic messages, and unflinching storytelling, the movie continues to haunt critics and audiences alike.
But the young actors who so evocatively brought Peter (Alex Wolff) and Charlie (Milly Shaprio) to life have been haunted in a different kind of way, now that they’re the breakout stars of a bonafide horror hit.
Well mostly, they’re just getting a whole lot of terrified looks from people in public.
“I’ve found that I can actually tell how long it’s been since they’ve seen the movie,” Alex Wolff told Mashable. “Just from the look on their face, I can tell the difference between people who saw it a few days ago, people who saw it months ago, or the people who just saw it that day.”
On one particularly hilarious occasion, Wolff was sticking his head out of a cab window — and don’t get ahead of yourself, he was not decapitated. But a couple he happened upon, who he could tell from the look on their face had only just seen the movie, made quite the scene over spotting Paimon IRL.
“This guy grabs his husband or boyfriend and just starts smacking his chest, starring at me, and screams ‘Ah!!!’ out loud. Just smacking him again and again while pointing at me and going, ‘Oh my god! oh my GOD! Jerry! Jerry! Fucking look!’”
When Jerry finally turned around to see what the fuss was about, Wolff said their faces looked like operatic horror movie music had started playing in their heads.
“They looked so upset and scared, so of course I smiled at ’em and played it up. Gave them the creepiest smile possible — that paimon smile.”
While Wolff is too humble and goofy to make a big deal out of it, one behind-the-scenes segment with director Ari Aster from the Blu-ray DVD of Hereditary (releasing on Sept. 3) emphasized the young actors commitment to the part. He method acted throughout the duration of the shoot, staying in character as Peter for months.
Milly Shapiro absolutely slayed as the demon child Charlie in “Hereditary”
But, he said, that was just a practical tool when it comes to staying inside the head of a character as traumatized as Peter. Still, after the shooting, the film felt hard to shake.
“It stuck with me — it was hard to get past it,” he admitted, though still reluctant to sound too pretentious about the process. “The emotional toll was the most upsetting part of it, though, not so much the horror.”
He even still has a pair of shoes he used during the movie, and found blood stains from god knows what when he tried to use them again.
Milly Shapiro, on the other hand, gets bombarded with Tweets and exclamations of relief from people running over to her on the street to express how relieved they are to see her alive, well, and not decapitated.
She also gets quite a lot of clucking from fans, though she’s made it abundantly clear that clucking in the theaters during a screen of the movie is not OK.
But funnily enough, Shapiro doesn’t really feel as traumatized by Hereditary as everyone else. Actually, being on the movie helped desensitize her from getting shook too easily.
“I used to be terrified of everything, but I have a really high tolerance for horror movies now,” she said. It was part of a conscious choice on her part years ago, to help her conquer fears.
“My whole idea was that I’d be really creepy, so then things wouldn’t creep me out — they’d be creeped out by me instead. Which was a very weird idea for a 9 or 10 year old to have. But it worked!”
I think we can all agree it most definitely worked. Maybe a little too well.
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John McCain memorial: Obama and Bush deliver eulogies at the National Cathedral
Barack Obama and George W. Bush, the two men who kept John McCain from the presidency, will eulogize the senator at the National Cathedral memorial service.
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USA TODAY
Published 6:48 a.m. ET Sept. 1, 2018 | Updated 9:17 a.m. ET Sept. 1, 2018
“Few of us have been tested the way John once was, or required to show the kind of courage that he did,” former President Barack Obama said in a statement upon the news of Senator John McCain‘s passing. “But all of us can aspire to the courage to put the greater good above our own. At John’s best, he showed us what that means. And for that, we are all in his debt.”
Obama will join former President George W. Bush in eulogizing the man that they both bested to become president of the United States.
McCain’s memorial service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. will begin at 10 a.m. ET Saturday.
Prior to the service, a procession will take place to carry Senator McCain from the United States Capitol Building, where he lay in state on Friday. His widow Cindy McCain will lead the procession to the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, where a wreath will be laid in her husband’s honor, before proceeding to the National Cathedral for the memorial service.
USA TODAY is providing extended coverage of McCain’s memorial events, including Saturday’s service at the National Cathedral. You can watch it live in the player above starting at 9:30 a.m. ET.
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Senator John McCain devoted his life to serving our country. USA TODAY
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