In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Environmental disaster; animal endangerment] The Plains All American Pipeline oil spill off the California coast Tuesday, the cause of which is currently under investigation, is causing a huge fucking mess of an environmental disaster, including endangering animals: "A fleet of 18 vessels is battling to contain an oil slick stretching nine miles along the California coast as rescuers on land try to save seals, birds, and other wildlife trapped in the black goo. ...Crews have so far extracted 7,770 gallons of oily water from the ocean while on beaches workers in white protective suits shovelled sludge which coated sand, rocks and plants. The cleanup could last months, officials said. Currents, tides and winds make the oil slick 'a moving target' as it drifts offshore, coast guard captain Jennifer Williams told reporters."

In good news: The Girl Scouts of the USA welcomes transgender girls (actually, they have for awhile now), and their chief girl expert (I love that they have a chief girl expert!) Andrea Bastiani Archibald says: "Our position is not new. It conforms with our continuous commitment to inclusivity." Naturally, the usual suspects are acting like this is THE END OF THE WORLD!!!11!1!eleventy!! but fuck them.

Today, Irish voters take to the polls to vote on a referendum that could legalize same-sex marriage. "Though some 20 other countries worldwide have already legalised gay marriage, Ireland would be the first to do so through a referendum. The move would mark the culmination of an improbable journey in a country in which homosexual acts were still illegal as recently as 1993. Voter turnout is said to be higher than in previous referendums in the republic, with some urban areas, particularly in the key greater Dublin battleground, reporting that 20% of the electorate had cast their vote before lunchtime." That's probably a good sign for the yesses.

In case Hillary Clinton hasn't apologized enough for her Iraq War vote for you, she has once again said that it was a mistake: "I made it very clear that I made a mistake, plain and simple."

[CN: Class warfare] Holy shit: Experts at real estate company Trulia have found "new [college] grads can't really afford to live anywhere among the country's 25 largest rental markets. While the median annual income for new grads ranges from about $16,000 to about $41,000 in these cities, the income needed to afford median rent is two to three times that—assuming grads don't want to spend more than 31 percent of their income on rent."

[CN: Stalking; harassment; coercion; sexual assault] Fucking hell: "A worker at the US embassy in London is accused of cyberstalking hundreds of women, threatening to post their private photos unless they met his demands. Michael C Ford, who has lived in the UK since 2006, was arrested last week while visiting family in Atlanta. Prosecutors say Mr Ford hacked accounts of women to obtain sexually explicit images of them. ...Mr Ford threatened his victims with the stolen images, demanding that they shoot videos of other women undressing, prosecutors said. ...In at least one case, prosecutors say, he emailed private photos to one woman's parents and brother." This shitbird no longer words at the US embassy, according to an embassy spokesperson. Uh, good.

[CN: Sexual abuse of children; rape culture] A documentary about the "open secret" of the sexual abuse of children in the entertainment industry is struggling to find distribution, because of course it is. "What you see in the film is literally just the tip of the iceberg," says executive producer Gabe Hoffman. "For every victim that's in the film, there are another five or 10 with fact-checked, legitimate accounts who didn't want to be identified." Sob.

[CN: Climate change] Shit: "Satellites have seen a sudden dramatic change in the behaviour of glaciers on the Antarctica Peninsula, according to a Bristol University-led study. The ice streams were broadly stable up until 2009, since when they have been losing on the order of 56 billion tonnes of ice a year to the ocean. Warm waters from the deep sea may be driving the changes, the UK-based team says."

This is pretty damn cool: "Astronomers have spent decades trying to find out more about the star called Nasty 1 which is far bigger than our sun. It has been identified as a Wolf-Rayet star, which loses its hydrogen-filled outer layers quickly to expose its super-hot and bright helium core. But while astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope expected to see two lobes of gas coming out of the star, they were surprised to see a huge disc surrounding it. The area of gas is around 1,000 times the diameter of our solar system and may have formed as a result of a clash with a nearby star. It could be evidence of a rare space event. NASA said: 'The vast disk is nearly two trillion miles wide, and may have formed from an unseen companion star that snacked on the outer envelope of the newly formed Wolf-Rayet.'" Two trillion miles wide!

[CN: Domestic violence] Phoenix, Arizona's Sojourner Center, one of the largest and oldest domestic violence shelters in the country, now welcomes pets who are seeking refuge from abuse with their owners. Blub.

And finally! The Mewgaroo lets you take your cat, small dog, rabbit, or other pet with you wherever you go! Sophie tells me I need to get one of these PRONTO.