In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

This is very good news: "The World Health Organization announced Friday that an Ebola vaccine has shown great promise in halting the spread of the deadly virus during a clinical trial in Guinea. 'We believe that the world is on the verge of an efficacious Ebola vaccine,' Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO assistant director general for health systems and innovation, said in announcing the results of a preliminary study on the vaccine trial. ...According to results published in the journal Lancet on Friday, the vaccine was found to be 100 percent effective in people treated. More than 4,000 people have been vaccinated with VSV-EBOV, and none have developed Ebola after between six and 10 days, the amount of time needed for people to develop immunity."

[Content Note: War on agency] Senate Republicans continue to find excellent (sarcasm) ways to spend their time: "The Senate is poised to vote Monday on a Republican proposal to defund Planned Parenthood and divert the funds to other health-care entities. The bill, S. 1881, was drafted by a 'working group' led by Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Rand Paul (R-KY), and James Lankford (R-OK), and has at least 32 Republican co-sponsors." Fuck all of these people.

[CN: Misogyny; war on agency; violence] Relatedly: Today at 2pm ET, join @reproaction on Twitter for a discussion about "what women actually need, deserve, can do." Because "women are betrayed…by all manner of things."

This is also very good news: "Prison inmates will be eligible to obtain federal Pell grants to finance college education while they are behind bars under an experiment announced Friday, two decades after Congress banned prisoners from receiving such grants. Under the experiment, Obama administration officials said, a limited number of prisoners could begin receiving Pell-financed instruction from a select number of colleges as soon as fall 2016. ...This experiment will be called the Second Chance Pell Pilot Program. It aims to help prisoners work toward an associate's or a bachelor's degree while incarcerated. Obama officials said research shows that correctional education helps reduce the likelihood that prisoners will commit crimes again after they are released, ultimately saving taxpayers money." Also, just by the by, it's a decent fucking thing to do, irrespective of whether it saves money.

[CN: Wildfires] Goddamn: "A grass fire fueled by strong winds destroyed seven homes in a mobile home park Thursday as fires continued to rage in Northern California. The fire swept through the Isleton mobile home park Thursday, forcing residents to run for their lives. A small vegetation fire in the Solano County delta town got out of control and reached the homes before firefighters could quell the flames. Meanwhile, the destructive wildfire burning north of Napa Valley has scorched 13,000 acres, damaged multiple outbuildings and forced 650 people to flee."

This is just a real headline in the world: "Facebook Ready to Test Giant Drone for Beaming Internet Via Lasers." Sure. Gleep glorp.

[CN: Privacy violations] Shiiiiiiiit: "Windows 10 is under attack over default settings which users say compromise their privacy, just days after the operating system's successful launch saw more than 14 million installs in the first 24 hours. Hundreds of commenters...have criticised default settings that send personal information to Microsoft, use bandwidth to upload data to other computers running the operating system, share Wi-Fi passwords with online friends, and remove the ability to opt out of security updates. ...Users are given the option to opt out of most of the data collection, but critics say that that isn't enough. ...'There is no world in which 45 pages of policy documents and opt-out settings split across 13 different Settings screens and an external website constitutes 'real transparency.''"

Do you like Meryl Streep? Do you also like Mamie Gummer? I like Meryl Streep AND Mamie Gummer! If you are like me, then you might enjoy hearing Mamie Gummer talk about working with her mom, Meryl Streep. And about other stuff!

[CN: Misogyny] Of course Jon Stewart is having Louis CK as one of the guests on his final show. OF COURSE he is. Hopefully they can tell us more about how humorless, scary, and violent feminists are!

Okay! "In the series, Tom Hardy plays James Keziah Delaney, a rogue adventurer who returns to London in 1813 after spending 10 years in Africa, only to discover that he has been left a mysterious legacy by his father, who has been killed. Delaney refuses to sell his family's business to the East India Company, and opts to build his own trading and shipping empire instead, which thrusts him into the middle of the War of 1812, between the U.S. and Britain. ...Hardy actually crafted the original story himself with his father Chips Hardy." I will never stop being delighted that Tom Hardy's dad is called Chips Hardy!

And finally! Proof that cats have been hilarious assholes since at least 100 AD!