In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today!

Dan Froomkin says that US media coverage of the shutdown is failing USians. And he is correct!

[Content Note: Environmental harm] Dangerous levels of radioactivity have been found at a fracking waste site in Pennsylvania: "Elevated levels of chloride and bromide, combined with strontium, radium, oxygen, and hydrogen isotopic compositions, are present in...the water discharged from Josephine Brine Treatment Facility into Blacklick Creek, which feeds into a water source for western Pennsylvania cities, including Pittsburgh." Fracking has also been linked to flaming tap water, earthquakes, contaminating water supplies, and organ damage. Y'all, I'm beginning to suspect that fracking isn't as safe as we keep being told that it is! (That was sarcasm. Fracking is the worst.)

[CN: Class warfare] Along with virtually all other government funding (don't worry—the heapshits forcing the shutdown are still definitely getting paid!), the most recent extension of the "TANF block grant that the federal government gives to states to share the cost of welfare programs...expired Monday night." TANF is the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, aka welfare.

The Guttmacher Institute makes the compelling case that the nationwide network of publicly supported family planning centers, which ensure that women et. al. have control over their reproduction, is more crucial than ever now that the ACA is being fully implemented.

[CN: Rape culture] Democratic California Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill into law that makes "revenge porn"—"in which a person electronically distributes or posts on the Internet nude pictures of an ex-romantic partner after a breakup to shame the person in public"—a crime. I hate for eleventy reasons that this is called "revenge porn," and I cannot believe a special law had to be passed to make this a crime.

[CN: Racism; police harassment] A federal district judge will review the guidelines governing police surveillance in NYC following charges that the city's Muslim residents are routinely having their civil rights violated by "an unconstitutional religious profiling and suspicionless surveillance program."

A new survey finds something about marriage according to a majority of married people with kids, or something. The thing I never understand about surveys and studies on marriage is that I'm pretty sure BUT MAYBE I'M WRONG that most people don't get married the day they meet? So what does "the third year of marriage" even really mean, when the third year of marriage for one couple is their fourth year of being partnered and for another couple their seventeenth year of being partnered? I'm pretty sure it means nothing, that's what!

[CN: Simpsons spoilers] Do you still care about The Simpsons, now in its 100th season? Just kidding! It's only in its 25th season. That still sounds like a joke, but it isn't! Anyway, if you ever cared and now still care about The Simpsons, then you may be interested to know that The Simpsons is planning to kill off a major character this season, which seems like an odd way to promote your show, if you ask me, but then I tend to like shows which love their characters, and The Simpsons is not really one of those. So this story isn't for me, but it might be for you!