The real Hermione Granger would get 112% in this quiz.
Warner Bros. / BuzzFeed
7 Easy Organizing Tricks You'll Actually Want To Try
Small options to make your life a little more organized.
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed
Finally clean up those cords behind your TV.
This tutorial uses small adhesive hooks and zip ties, but you can figure out whatever system works for your cords and your furniture.
Spend a couple hours cooking on Sunday afternoon so you can have fresh homemade dinners all week long.
These are the ingredients for a full week's worth of meals for four people, which includes a Pork Rice Bowl, Pita Wraps With Smashed Avocado, Vegetable Fried Rice, Shredded Pork and Vegetable Hash, and Baked Egg, Bean, and Cheese Pita Pizzas. Get the full meal plan here.
Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed
Enlist a fishing tackle box to sort all of your hairstyling paraphernalia.
Then if you need to pack it to bring with you anywhere, it's already assembled. From here.
This Burn Survivor Transforms Herself With Makeup And It's Incredible
“You should love yourself either way — makeup or no makeup.”
Meet Shalom Nchom.
She's a 20-year-old makeup artist from Nigeria who now lives in Maryland.
Shalom Nchom / Via instagram.com
Shalom Nchom
Shalom Nchom
23 Things That Won't Make Sense Unless You've Planned A Wedding
There’s a special place in hell for people who don’t RSVP and show up anyway.
Everything feels possible right after you get engaged.
But the beginning stage is incredibly daunting.
Especially picking a wedding date.
But people start asking you about it the second you get engaged.
Or just very specific details.
Netflix
This Succulent Jewelry Is Stunning And You'll Want To Own Some ASAP
Rock it and then plant it.
Meet Susan McLeary, a 41-year-old florist and jewelry designer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
McLeary got into floral work when a frazzled friend needed help with flowers for her wedding. "Once I started working with flowers, I knew I'd found my medium," she told BuzzFeed.
Susan McLeary / Via passionflowerevents.com
To combine her love of plants and fashion, McLeary started to make succulent jewelry.
Her Etsy store PassionflowerMade features succulent-studded cuffs and rings, statement plant necklaces, and striking boutonnieres.
Amanda DuMouchelle Photography / Via etsy.com
How it works: McLeary trims succulent roots and secures them to jewelry using plant-safe floral glue.
The result: Stunning special occasion alternatives to traditional jewelry.
Chelsea Brown Photography
The succulents typically last between 1 and 3 weeks.
"Some people will wear them up to 6 weeks," she said. At that point, the succulents will start sprouting small roots.
Abby Rose Photo
9 Feels I Have About Samsung's New Galaxy Phones
:accidentally drops in toilet:
If you're looking for a new phone, you may have heard that Samsung announced their newest Android smartphones, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. ??
They're the best devices in Samsung's lineup right now, and they go on sale March 11.
Nicole / BuzzFeed / Samsung
Because the phones have cool features but are also expensive AF, you are probably suffering from upgrade indecision.
I can help with this.
I got to play with both the S7 and S7 edge — and now I have some thoughts.
The Galaxy S6 is a fantastic phone, and the S7 is an improvement over it only slightly. The Galaxy S5 had many much-beloved features (namely water resistance and an SD card slot) that the S7 is bringing back.
If you already own an S5 or S6, stay tuned for in-depth reviews before the March 11 launch date from publications (like us!). Then you'll know for sure whether the incremental upgrades are worth it or just marketing gimmicks.
The phones cost ~$670 or ~$790 for the S7 and S7 edge, respectively. Know what you're getting into before you make the investment!
Jeff Barron / BuzzFeed
29 Boxes You Didn't Know You Could Subscribe To
Constant presents are the best presents.
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed
We hope you love the products we recommend! Just so you know, BuzzFeed may collect a small share of sales from the links on this page.
How Harry Potter Are You?
Let’s hope not a lot otherwise your family’s probably dead!
Warner Bros. Pictures
21 Incredibly Gorgeous Wedding DIYs That You Can Actually Do
Your dream wedding is in your hands.
Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed
25 Insane Sales To Shop Right Now
Sale away, sale away, sale away.
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed
We hope you love the products we recommend! Just so you know, BuzzFeed may collect a small share of sales from the links on this page.
18 Awesome Stores That Donate Profits To Help Animals
Wear something that means something.
Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed
Here’s How To Get Facebook’s New Reaction Emojis
~Love~ Haha! Wow! Sad. Angry.
The like button is sooo yesterday. This morning, Facebook added five new emoji reactions to posts.
The company is rolling out the emojis across the world on Android, iOS, desktop, and mobile web.
Hack Your Whole Life With The BuzzFeed DIY Newsletter!
Give DIY a try.
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed
Who it's for: Anyone looking for brilliant tips that will help make every day better. People who love keeping their living spaces neat, clean, and beautiful. Everyone who wants smart ways to save money, or simply to be inspired.
What you'll get: Life-changing tips for cleaning and getting organized. Clever ways to make the most of your space, no matter how small it is. Easy DIY projects. Gorgeous ways to decorate. Creative ideas for special occasions. Hacks for your devices, must-try apps, and much more!
When you'll get it: Three times a week.
Enter your email address to sign up now!
The Government Is Stopping Us Writing About Spies And The Royal Family, Say Historians
The government is being accused of using national security as an excuse to withhold crucial historical documents from academics researching British spy agencies.
One historian has now obtained legal advice that suggests the government is breaking freedom of information laws by not releasing Cabinet Office files he needs for his research into Anthony Blunt, one of the Cambridge Five spies who were revealed to have betrayed their country to the Soviet Union.
The claim has been accompanied by a barrage of criticism regarding the government’s retention of files from other historians who have told BuzzFeed News their efforts to access historical records have been constantly frustrated by officials. It will add to the growing sense of unrest around how the government administers the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.
Anthony Lownie, whose previous book, Stalin’s Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess, describes the life of another of the Cambridge spies, applied under Freedom of Information laws for the Blunt files last year but his application was rejected.
After Lownie appealed the FOI rejection, he was told the files would be “opened at the National Archives” later in 2015, but they did not appear there. He threatened to write to his MP and was eventually told that the files had not been made available because they were “part of a larger process” of making files available to the National Archives.
He then took legal advice and was told that he had been given an “expectation’” of transfer by the end of 2015 and therefore the Cabinet Office could be legally challenged for breaching FOI legislation.
Andrew Lownie
He told BuzzFeed News: “This particular flouting of FOI legislation doesn’t surprise me because it is commonplace throughout government though the Cabinet Office, supposedly responsible for supervising FOI across Whitehall, are one of the worst offenders. The government is withholding records going back to the Victorian period. How can historians write accurate history if the documents are not made available?”
He says that his efforts to research Burgess have also been frustrated by the way the government “brazenly” flouts both FOI and the Public Records Act, which requires government documents to be placed in the National Archives within 20 years, unless they pose a threat to national security.
He said: “This is not just a matter for historians but any concerned citizen. Making government records publicly available is an essential part of any democracy. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that trust in our institutions is at such an all time low when they so flagrantly ignore both FOI legislation and the Public Records Act.”
Earlier this month, Lownie set out in a blog what he described as the “Kafkaesque journey” he had taken to secure government information about Burgess. He said he’d had “particular difficulty” with the Cabinet Office – the government department responsible for the implementation of FOI across government.
He cited a number of other government “tricks” that prevented him accessing files. They ranged from delaying their answers to requests to simply not answering them at all, and also, in his words, “being difficult”.
He wrote: “One of my recent refusals was on the grounds the document gave away surveillance techniques – it is over sixty years old.” He cited another example: “ I was asked to obtain a death certificate for a spy born in 1908 who has several online obituaries in national newspapers to prove that he wasn’t alive at [the age of] 106.”
Lownie points out the Foreign Office has 600,000 files at a high security facility shared with MI6 and MI5, which are only known about because they came to light during a court case – they will, according to the Government, take “years” to review for release, yet they date back to the Victorian period.
Dr Rory Cormac, a professor of international relations at the University of Nottingham, told BuzzFeed News that he’d faced particular problems with FOI: “They just stonewall,” he said. “I’ve had 18 month-long battles to get papers relating to MI6 so I’ve had to pick my battles carefully.”
He told BuzzFeed News that last year he’d requested files about the Committee on Communism (Overseas), a body overseeing anti-communist policy in the 1950s. Some of its files were already released but others were not. His FOI request was rejected last July by the Cabinet Office, although he says that the department had informally told a colleague that they were likely to be released. He’d appealed in September but it was only last week he was finally told they had been wrong to deny him one file.
However, instead of giving him a copy Cormac said the department had decided to withhold it on other (non-security) grounds, arguing that it was in the process of transferring it to the National Archives and so to give him a copy would breach section 22(1) of the FOI act protecting "information intended for future publication”.
The National Archives, Kew.
He said: “The catch is that they will not transfer the file to the archives until 31 December 2016. This is a deliberate ploy to stop me having it as they know full well that whatever research project I'm on will be finished by then.”
He added that he’d struggled to get hold of other intelligence documents relating to anti-communist operations in the 1950s and was bemused as to why: “They don’t even contain operational detail – they’re policy wonks discussing potential operational detail, he said.”
Cormac said he’d told off record by government staff that many of the problems were due to cuts in their departments: “It’s often just one poor man or woman on their own,” he said. He added that the 2013 announcement by the government that historical papers have to be released after 20 years rather than 30 had created a huge added workload.
Another historian who has written at length about the intelligence services, Nigel West (the pen name of former MP Rupert Allason), told BuzzFeed News he remembered having discussions with government officials prior to the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act in which they said they couldn’t believe there would ever be declassification.
“MI5 employs retirees to declassify the documents, but they don’t know how to redact,” he said. This, he felt, lead to them erring too far on the side of caution. He said it was “impossible to put the genie of declassification back in the bottle”. He said: “You can see the difficulty – it’s difficult to make records public when you’ve promised people that compromising information won’t be made public in their lifetimes, or even, in some cases, in their grandchildren’s lifetimes.
“It’s hard [for the intelligence services] to get people to cooperate when you know the records might well end up in Kew,” he added. There are clear dangers: West described one occasion when he was writing about the history of MI6’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) operations and found a collection of documents in the National Archives that related to the finances of a worldwide network of Passport Control Officers – which was the cover for SIS.
This gave him a matrix that meant he was able to piece together the names of former SIS members – many of whom were still alive at the time, and who he contacted and spoke to for his book. After it was published, the papers were removed from the National Archives.
He pointed out it’s not just the British government that has struggled with declassification. He said that one senior American security official had told him more CIA officers were engaged in declassification than counter-terrorism prior to 9/11.
Two other historians - both of whom Andrew Lownie represents in his role as a literary agent – told BuzzFeed News about their struggles with FOI. Glyn Gowans, who has written a biography of Prince George, the Duke of Kent, told BuzzFeed News that his efforts to dig up documents about a royal visit to New York in 1942 had been stymied by a “signed instrument” brought in by former justice secretary Chris Grayling in 2011.
Keystone / Getty Images
The instrument effectively enables Whitehall to retain any 'historical record' (currently means any document pre-dating 1991) relating to intelligence services including MI6, MI5 and GCHQ on the grounds of national security. Gowans is currently challenging the Foreign Office over the retention of this document.
Lownie told BuzzFeed News: “The justification seems to be that any records relating to intelligence, whether sensitive or not, can be retained under a blanket exemption signed in 2011. No one seems prepared to hold government departments to account. Not politicians, not academia, not the media, not the Advisory Committee on Records at the National Archives. It’s a scandal and more reminiscent of a banana republic.”
Another author represented by Lownie, David McClure, who last year published a book about the royal finances and how the Windsors pass on their wealth, said that he had tried to acquire documents relating to the Civil List for the new Queen in 1952, but had been told they were to be closed for 100 years.
He said: “When state documents are now governed by the 20 year rule why do we have to wait 100 years to see the 1952 Civil List papers setting out the details of the new Queen’s state funding by Churchill’s government? Why are members of the royal family granted special privileges when it comes to access to government papers about their state funding? What are they hiding?”
He also told BuzzFeed News that he had struggled to get hold of a 45-year-old cache of documents in the National Archives relating to the Civil List, which had been “temporarily retained” by the Treasury. He wrote to the department in 2011, but never received a reply. He said: “One of the most effective ways for Whitehall to stifle valid journalistic or historical inquiry is to do nothing. The reason is that you just wait not knowing that they are not processing your request. If I had known they would do nothing, I would have put in an FOI request.”
He has now done so, but has yet to acquire the documents. In his book, he writes: “A cynic might judge that they had decided to hammer an extra nail into the lid of the coffin after the thirty year rule had let in too much daylight."
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said, "This Government is committed to being the most transparent ever and we are publishing unprecedented amounts of information. The Cabinet Office is working hard to ensure that files are transferred as soon as possible to The National Archives as we move from a 30 year to 20 year rule."
Disclosure: in his role as a literary agent, Lownie has also represented the author of this post.
23 DIY Costumes You'll Only See At A Disney Princess Race
The happiest race on earth.
The Disney Princess Half Marathon was this past weekend.
Basically, Disney World hosts a set of princess-themed races (a 5k, 10k, and half marathon) over the course of 3 days. People dress up in all sorts of costumes to race through the park.
Preston Mack
runDisney
runDisney
"Harry Potter And The Cursed Child" Has Officially Started Rehearsals
*Chants* NEW HARRY POTTER, NEW HARRY POTTER, NEW HARRY POTTER.
According to the official Twitter account of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the eighth Harry Potter story has officially started rehearsals.
They also also just announced 39 new cast members.
Manuel Hartan / Via Twitter: @HPPlayLDN
Previously, the only cast we knew of was the new trio – Harry, Ron, and Hermione being played by Jamie Parker, Paul Thornley, and Noma Dumezweni, respectively.
Here they are with J.K. Rowling, as well as Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, who co-wrote the new play. Tiffany is also directing.
Pottermore
But on Friday, Pottermore showed us the entire company.
They are: Nicola Alexis, Helen Aluko, Jeremy Ang Jones, Rosemary Annabella, Annabel Baldwin, Jack Bennett, Paul Bentall, Anthony Boyle, Zoe Brough, Sam Clemmett, Morag Cross, Cristina Fray, Rudi Goodman, Claudia Grant, James Howard, Christiana Hutchings, Lowri James, Chris Jarman, Martin Johnston, Bili Keogh, Chipo Kureya, James Le Lacheur, Helena Lymbery, Tom Mackley, Barry McCarthy, Sandy McDade, Andrew McDonald, Adam McNamara, Poppy Miller, Tom Milligan, Jack North, Alex Price, Stuart Ramsay, Nuno Silva, Cherrelle Skeete, Esther Smith, Nathaniel Smith, Dylan Standen, and Joshua Wyatt.
Manuel Hartan / Via Twitter: @HPPlayLDN
13 Of The Best Quotes From Emma Watson’s Interview With Feminist Author Gloria Steinem
Everything from her eyebrows to the sex sites she uses, and how like Hermione she truly is.
Last month Emma Watson revealed she's starting a feminist book club. And one of the first books she chose was Gloria Steinem's My Life on the Road.
Gloria Steinem is a women's rights activist, a writer, lecturer, editor, and renowned feminist.
Nick Cunard / Nick Cunard / NCSM Media
It turns out the pair are actually fans of each other and on Wednesday night they sat down for an inspiring discussion during an event in London.
Nick Cunard / Nick Cunard / NCSM Media
Let's get one thing straight – there was a lot of attention on things like the fact Emma debuted new ombré hair for the talk.
Nick Cunard / Nick Cunard / NCSM Media
