Disney’s live action remake of ‘The Little Mermaid’ rewrites songs like ‘Kiss the Girl’ to teach consent
The composer for Disney’s live action “Little Mermaid” remake recently confirmed that some of the classic songs written for the 1989 animated classic have had lyrical changes to promote consent.
Composer Alan Menken told Vanity Fair in a recent interview that some of the original’s famous songs, including “Kiss the Girl,” have received updated lyrics so it’s clear to viewers that Prince Eric would never “force himself on Ariel.”
Another song, “Poor Unfortunate Souls” – sung by classic Disney villain Ursula – has had its lyrics updated because some of the lines “might make young girls somehow feel that they shouldn’t speak out of turn,” Menken said.
DENMARK’S LITTLE MERMAID STATUE VANDALIZED WITH ‘RACIST FISH’ GRAFFITI
The film, starring African American actress Halle Bailey as title character Ariel and comedian Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, will hit theaters on May 26.
Clarifying the changes before they could surprise longtime fans, Menken said, “There are some lyric changes in Kiss the Girl because people have gotten very sensitive about the idea that [Prince Eric] would, in any way, force himself on [Ariel].”
The lyrics to the original tune’s chorus read, “Yes, you want her. Look at her, you know you do. Possible she wants you too. There is one way to ask her. It don’t take a word. Not a single word. Go on and kiss the girl.”
The composer then mentioned the changes the Ursula’s most famous number. He said, “We have some revisions in Poor Unfortunate Souls regarding lines that might make young girls somehow feel that they shouldn’t speak out of turn.”
In the original song, the sea witch sings, “The men up there don’t like a lot of blabber. They think a girl who gossips is a bore! Yet on land it’s much preferred for ladies not to say a word. And after all dear, what is idle babble for?”
BUD LIGHT’S PACT WITH TRANS ACTIVIST DYLAN MULVANEY SPARKS OUTRAGE, PRAISE
The original songs were composed by Menken, along with the late Howard Ashman.
Menken and “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, have also penned several new original songs for the upcoming live action remake.
The changes were fodder for the co-hosts of “The View” during their Wednesday episode. Most of the ladies approved of some of them, though one was a little confused about the implications of one of the changes.
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg defended the updates in general, saying, “If you’re the songwriter and you have daughters – and you’re a songwriter who says, ‘You know what these are not feeling like the songs I want kids singing now. I need to make some adjustments.’ I’m glad he did.”
Granted, Goldberg clarified she was fine with the original artist making these changes, but less fine with someone new coming along and changing the artist’s vision.
Co-host Sunny Hostin claimed she “didn’t mind that he wanted to change the “Poor Unfortunate Souls.” She claimed, “there’s a line that basically says, ‘Men don’t want you to talk much anyway,’ when she’s trying to get her voice. They just like your body, like your face. The ones that don’t talk get a man.”
Though Hostin mentioned her problem with altering “Kiss The Girl” within the context of the movie’s plot, pointing out how by that moment in the movie, Ariel had given “her voice away so she could have legs, so I don’t know how she could talk.”
“How do you consent, when you can’t talk?” she asked.
Bride rips dress, takes a fall and fractures foot at wedding, is forced to cancel honeymoon cruise
A wedding day is often considered one of the most memorable and wonderful days of a person’s life.
For this bride, though, the day was filled with one issue after another — culminating in a canceled honeymoon.
Daisy Allen, a 24-year-old bride from Somerset, England, who works as a police control room supervisor, married her husband, Tom Allen, in a wedding near Bristol.
WEDDING MISHAP: BRIDE STOPS ENTIRE WEDDING WHEN SHE FORGETS PART OF HER WEDDING DRESS
The day was going as planned, Allen told SWNS.
That is — until she ripped her wedding dress on a tree branch while taking photos before the ceremony.
“I knew I’d damaged my dress outside, but I wasn’t bothered — I was having a great time,” she said.
While dancing with her 100 guests at the reception, however, Allen slipped on some melting ice cubes — and caught her foot in the hole in her dress.
WEDDING CEREMONY DELAYED DUE TO A PAIR OF FIGHTING KANGAROOS: ‘RIGHT IN THE GUT’
Allen then twisted her knee and fell to the floor, fracturing her foot, SWNS reported.
“At first I was laughing, but then I tried to stand up [and] I couldn’t,” she said.
“That’s when I realized I’d hurt myself quite badly,” she told SWNS.
Allen was carried upstairs to her hotel room. The next morning, her husband, a police officer, took her to the hospital so that doctors could examine her foot.
GROOM GOES TO WRONG WEDDING VENUE, NEARLY MARRIES A STRANGER IN INDONESIA
An X-ray showed that she had a fracture — and would potentially have to undergo surgery.
“We were supposed to be jetting off to Miami for two nights, followed by a week-long cruise around the Caribbean,” she said.
The newlyweds were forced to cancel their dream honeymoon, which cost about $5K, noted SWNS.
“We had all sorts of fun stuff booked like basketball matches and speedboat trips, but instead, I’m bed-bound,” she said.
The Allens were able to get a refund for their hotel in Miami.
An insurance company is dealing with the flights and cruise — and the newlyweds are hoping to rebook for later this year, SWNS reported.
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“I guess it’s just one of those things!” said the bride.
Adthos uses generative AI to completely automate audio ads
As generative AI proliferates, it’s beginning to reach the ads we hear on podcasts and the radio.
Startup Adthos this week launched a platform that uses AI to generate scripts for audio ads — and even add voiceovers, sound effects and music. Customers can optionally go in and edit the ads using a browser-based, multi-track editor, yielding a “fully produced” ad that can be played out via integrations with radio automation systems and ad servers.
Adthos CEO Raoul Wedel pitches the platform as a way for advertisers to “efficiently self-service” and “instantly” produce high-audio ads — and for publishers to “support long-tail revenue streams” by creating self-service ad-buying platforms.
“The real game changer is that a small advertiser can run a great-quality ad in a minute or two,” Wedel said, pointing out the potential for localization and personalization.
But the platform — like many embracing generative AI tech — raises ethical questions.
Adthos’ platform is made up of a mix of in-house tech and third-party APIs. To generate ad scripts, Adthos leverages OpenAI’s recently released GPT-4 text-producing model. And on the voice side, Adthos compiled a library of hundreds of synthetic voices, including — according to Wedel — “Emmy Award-winning” voice actors and talents.
Wedel says that the voice actors are “fully aware” of the platform and paid either a flat fee or a licensing fee for the use of their voice, based on their preferences. “Adthos has already paid out hundreds of thousands in royalties to voice actors,” he added.
But what’s unclear is whether all of those voice actors chose to be included in Adthos’ library in the first place.
Recently, Vice reported that actors are being asked to sign away rights to their voices so that clients can use AI to generate synthetic versions that could eventually replace them. The contract language tends to be ambiguous, the voice actors say, with some actors reportedly being told that they can’t be hired without agreeing to clauses that give away the rights to use their voices for synthetic training.
Image Credits: Adthos
Wedel didn’t reveal the contractual terms of Adthos’ arrangements. But he reaffirmed that voice actors on the platform have signed consent and licensing agreements.
“We use real-life voice actors for the training of synthetic voices. We train and select them based on our experience in markets and ad creation,” Wedel said. “We have created our own training datasets and recording software for the talent to record their voice.”
Wedel added that actors are afforded some control over how their voices are used on the platform, like the choice to preclude them from use in certain ad categories, such as religious or political ads.
Asked about what steps, if any, Adthos takes to moderate the content generated by its platform, Wedel said that it leaves the task of reviewing ads before they’re finalized and broadcast to customers and publishers.
Generative AI, particularly text-generating AI, has a tendency to go off the rails. For example, OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT, has been found to make up facts and reinforce ethnic and gender stereotypes. If an Adthos customer was to totally automate the ad generation process, they might run the risk of producing toxic, offensive and ultimately harmful ads — an undesirable outcome for any brand, surely.
Wedel notes that OpenAI performs some filtering at the API level. But — recognizing that this alone isn’t sufficient, perhaps — he says that Adthos plans to add content moderation “as the platform develops,” including rules about words or terms that can’t be used in ads.
“It’s up to the publisher to have a human in the loop,” Wedel said. “But we have specific requirements, like disclosing the AI nature of the ads and only using voiceover talent with their consent.”
In any case, Adthos claims to have several paying customers, including Dutch media conglomerate Talpa, and advertisers and agencies like GroupM, Dentsu and Sportradar.
I asked Wedel point blank if he was concerned that Adthos’ platform could cost marketing and advertising agencies and companies jobs. He quoted Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, who said it was a “conscious decision” to start conversations in society early about what’s coming where it concerns AI.
“It will undoubtedly cause jobs to be lost. But the people that prepare and embrace AI will thrive and be more productive,” Wedel said. “The ones that don’t will be the ones losing jobs.”
Adthos uses generative AI to completely automate audio ads by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/05/adthos-uses-generative-ai-to-completely-automate-audio-ads/
Oklahoma City outlaw biker boss jumped, killed nearly year to day after Texas gunfight
One of the six people shot in an Oklahoma saloon Saturday was the chapter president of an outlaw motorcycle club who had been involved in another gunfight with the same gang almost exactly a year earlier.
Eric Oberholtzer, the suspected leader of the Homietos Motorcycle Club in Oklahoma City, was among three men who died in a clash of multiple gangs at the Whiskey Barrel Saloon April 1, according to authorities. Two other fatalities involved suspected Bandidos or members of an affiliated group.
The Bandidos have long been on law enforcement’s radar. The Justice Department says the Bandidos describe themselves as outlaws. The group has an international presence with chapters in North America and Europe.
The Homietos, a lesser-known organization, have been involved in several incidents of public violence in recent years.
OKLAHOMA CITY BIKER GANG SHOOTOUT LEAVES 3 DEAD, 3 INJURED; 1 ARRESTED ON MURDER CHARGES, POLICE SAY
Police in Texas arrested Oberholtzer and two other alleged Homietos members after another shootout on Interstate 45 in Madisonville, after they were accused of opening fire on a group of Bandidos members near an on-ramp.
Madisonville Police tell Fox News Digital that, on April 2, 2022, an altercation began with a verbal argument between a group of eight Homietos and four people who either belonged to the Bandidos or an aligned club at a store on East Main Street.
While there was no violence in the initial confrontation, the Homietos group, on motorcycles and accompanied by a black car, drove across the street and shot at the Bandidos in the parking lot, according to police.
Multiple bystanders told investigators they hit the ground for cover as bullets ricocheted around them. While there were no serious injuries, at least one shot struck a Bandidos motorcycle, and police found a bullet hole in a car parked more than 400 yards away.
Deputies in neighboring Leon County arrested Oberholtzer and another suspected member in the black car, Christopher Holt.
A state trooper separately tried to pull over Mahir Alihodizic, who allegedly sped off for roughly 80 miles before his capture in Navarro County. Alihodizic belonged to the club’s Kansas City chapter, authorities alleged, and he was photographed wearing club patches after the chase.
Police collected dozens of 9 mm bullet casings from the scene and one more from the suspects’ car. They said ballistics testing later found a match between guns in Oberholtzer’s car and the shells at the scene. Results had not yet come back on a third firearm.
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Texas police charged all three men with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and a count of engaging in organized criminal activity. Oberholtzer faced an additional charge of directing activities of a criminal street gang as the chapter president, police said.
They likened the additional count to a state-level racketeering charge.
With the Texas investigation ongoing, Oberholtzer and suspected fellow Homieto Tyler Myers were seen on surveillance video speaking with a group of apparent Bandidos members near a patio entrance at the Whiskey Barrel around 11 p.m. Saturday, according to an Oklahoma affidavit obtained by Fox News Digital.
Oberholtzer and Myers walked away followed by seven men “wearing Bandidos or support insignia,” according to court documents.
One of them rushed Myers and hit him in the head from behind.
Myers tried to hold the group at bay with a bar chair, according to the affidavit, and then allegedly pulled out a gun, causing “people to back up and many patrons in the bar to panic.”
At the same time, Oberholtzer was seen on the video fighting with rival biker Francisco Tanajara.
Oberholtzer shot at Tanajara. An unidentified man shot at Oberholtzer. And somehow the unidentified shooter wound up on the floor.
Myers, who also sustained a gunshot wound in the fight, ran to the door, turned back and allegedly shot at the unidentified man, who rolled over in a puddle of blood. He was later pronounced dead at the scene, along with Oberholtzer and Tanajara.
Myers and two others were injured — Clayton Owens, 36, and Felicia Wallace, 35.
A Facebook profile under Owens’ name includes an image of a man wearing a patch on his vest that says, “I Support Bandidos MC.” Police have not alleged his involvement in the violence, and he had not been charged with a crime as of Wednesday.
They did arrest Myers on a charge of first-degree murder after his release from the hospital. He was being held without bail at the Oklahoma County Detention Center.
In addition to the deadly clash in Oklahoma over the weekend, members have been arrested in connection with a bar brawl in the Florida Keys and a convenience store shooting in Corpus Christi, Texas, according to court documents.
Another member was convicted in 2020 on federal firearms and meth distribution charges after selling drugs to undercover ATF agents, according to court documents.
Madisonville Police are still investigating the 2022 shooting and are asking anyone with information to come forward.
In the deadly Oklahoma City shootout, police said additional charges are possible and are asking anyone with information to call their tip line at 405-297-1200.
Mexican judge orders 5 people held in homicide investigation into migrant center fire
A Mexican judge ordered that three Mexican immigration officials, a private security guard and a Venezuelan migrant be held for investigation in connection with a fire last week at an immigration detention center in northern Mexico that killed 40 migrants.
The four people responsible for security at the Ciudad Juarez facility will be held on charges of homicide by omission and causing injuries, while the migrant who allegedly set the fire faces charges of homicide and causing injuries, Mexico’s Federal Judiciary Council said after Tuesday’s hearing.
3 FOUND DEAD IN CANCUN’S HOTEL ZONE, AMIDST TROUBLING SURGE IN VIOLENCE
A video from a security camera inside the facility shows guards walking away when the fire started last Monday night inside the cell holding migrants and not making any attempt to release them. It was not clear whether those guards had keys to the cell doors.
More than two dozen migrants were seriously injured in the fire.
Ukrainian soldier accused of killing civilian goes on trial
A Ukrainian soldier on trial before a Russian military court on charges including murder and mistreatment of civilians pleaded “partially guilty” as the proceedings began Tuesday in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don.
Anton Cherednik was accused of stopping two Mariupol men in March 2022, ordering them to lie on the ground and demanding that they say a phrase in Ukrainian, according to the Russian Investigative Committee. When one of them didn’t pronounce it correctly, Cherednik killed him, the investigators said. The other victim escaped.
Cherednik’s lawyer, Vladimir Bakulov, said his client had pleaded guilty during the preliminary investigation but “now stated that he pleads partially guilty.” He did not explain why, but said he would talk with the defendant and “determine the line of defense.”
The court plans to start questioning witnesses next week.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/ukrainian-soldier-accused-killing-civilian-goes-trial
NPR Criticizes Twitter for Labeling It as ‘State-Affiliated Media’
The independent broadcaster called the designation disturbing and unacceptable. Elon Musk said it “seems accurate.”
NPR Criticizes Twitter for Labeling It as ‘State-Affiliated Media’
The independent broadcaster called the designation disturbing and unacceptable. Elon Musk said it “seems accurate.”
Mike Pence won’t appeal ruling ordering him to testify in special counsel probe, spokesman says
Mike Pence will not appeal a federal court ruling ordering him to testify in a special counsel probe into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to subvert the 2020 election, a spokesman for the former vice president said Wednesday, teeing up a historic moment in both the special counsel’s investigation and for the presidency.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/05/politics/mike-pence/index.html
Spanish judge sends suspect in church slayings to psychiatric center
A Spanish judge has ordered a psychiatric evaluation for a Moroccan man held in the January slaying of a church officer in the southern city of Algeciras.
Authorities identified the alleged assailant in the Jan. 26 machete attack as 25-year-old Yassine Kanjaa. He was arrested after he allegedly killed the worker and injured a priest at two Catholic churches in Algeciras.
A Spanish court told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the judge’s order was temporary and the attack was still being investigated as a possible terrorist act. Police have said they think the suspect acted alone.
Spain’s Interior Ministry said Kanjaa had been under a deportation order since June 2022 because of his unauthorized immigration status.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/spanish-judge-sends-suspect-church-slayings-psychiatric-center