In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today!

President Obama will speak later this morning "to announce a patch to his signature health care law to address mounting concerns over canceled insurance plans."

[Content Note: Sexual violence] It's pretty neat how this column about allegations that Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston sexually assaulted a woman asserts that sexual assault is "one of the worst crimes you can imagine" but nonetheless engages in some fun rape culture tropes: "Only time will tell whether these allegations are true." As if rape convictions reflect the truth of allegations. And I love that it is State Attorney Willie Meggs who is "one man capable of standing between Famous Jameis and the sporting world's most prestigious individual award." Actually, I'm pretty sure that the responsibility for that might rightly lie with Winston. Yeesh.

Two teenagers from Fair Immigration Reform Movement Youth In Action confronted House Speaker John Boehner at a diner and made it evident, once more, that Boehner is a jackass and his party is the worst.

[CN: Sexual violence; disablism] Supporting the Troops: "A new report by the ACLU, the Service Women's Action Network, and the Veterans Legal Service Clinic at Yale Law School alleges that the US Department of Veteran's Affairs (VA) discriminates against thousands of Military Sexual Trauma (MST) survivors seeking mental health disability benefits."

Jorge Odón, an Argentine car mechanic, has invented a device that helps deliver babies stuck in the birth canal. "The idea came to Jorge Odón as he slept. Somehow, he said, his unconscious made the leap from a YouTube video he had just seen on extracting a lost cork from a wine bottle to the realization that the same parlor trick could save a baby stuck in the birth canal. ...Unlikely as it seems, the idea that took shape on his counter has won the enthusiastic endorsement of the World Health Organization and major donors, and an American medical technology company has just licensed it for production. ...Doctors say it has enormous potential to save babies in poor countries, and perhaps to reduce cesarean section births in rich ones." Neat!

[CN: Hostility to consent] Two Secret Service agents have been dismissed from President Obama's detail after allegations of misconduct that include one of the agents having been "allegedly discovered attempting to reenter a woman's room after accidentally leaving behind a bullet from his service weapon." WHUT.

But don't they know she hasn't proven herself worthy yet?! "Jim Messina and John Podesta, top former aides to Barack Obama and Bill Clinton respectively, are currently in talks to co-chair a board backing Hillary Clinton—a plan that, should it come to fruition, would be a dramatic early symbol of party unity behind the former secretary of state."

[CN: Misogynoir] Mia McKenzie breaks down why Lily Allen's video for "Hard Out There" is exploitative racist garbage. Also? I'm getting reeeeeeeal tired of female pop stars being celebrated as feminist champions for publicly judging other female pop stars.

[Note: Video ad begins playing automatically at link] Scientists are finding out new things about black holes, and it is very interesting!

Maya Rudolph is getting her own primetime variety series at NBC. YAY I LOVE HER.