In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Environmental harm] I don't even have words: "Six days after a burst plug shot 3m gallons of toxic mining waste from Gold King Mine into Colorado's Animas River, communities in three states are increasingly frustrated that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hasn't explained the environmental and health impacts of the spill. 'For whatever reason, their communications continue to be insufficient,' said Durango-based San Juan Citizens Alliance executive director Dan Olson. 'They're sowing more confusion in the community than they are resolving it.' A slurry of mercury, arsenic, and lead that continues to flow from the disused mine at 550 gallons per minute is expected to keep communities in Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah from accessing water until at least 17 August, when the EPA says it hopes to have more information about what exactly is in it."

[CN: Sexual assault; police brutality; misogynoir] This is so fucked-up and I am so angry I can barely breathe: "A Houston deputy who pulled over Charnesia Corley, a 21-year-old black woman on her way to the store to pick up medicine for her sick mother, thought he smelled weed in Corley's car. He searched the car and couldn't find any. He called for a female officer to come to the gas station where Corley was being held so she could have her vagina searched. They arrested Corley because she objected to having her vagina examined in a gas station parking lot. ...The Harris County Sheriff's Office said its deputies acted appropriately." NOPE. Rage. Seethe. Boil.

[CN: Airline crash; war] This is, unfortunately, not a surprise: "Fragments of a suspected Russian missile system have been found at the Flight MH17 crash site in Ukraine, investigators in the Netherlands say. They say the parts, possibly from a Buk surface-to-air system, are 'of particular interest' and could help show who was behind the crash. But they say they have not proved their 'causal connection' with the crash. MH17 crashed on land held by Russian-backed rebels in July 2014, killing all 298 on board."

[CN: War on agency; misogyny; racism] Andrea Grimes continues her terrific coverage of the anti-choice fuckery in Texas: "During the 2015 legislative session, Texas lawmakers enacted policies that will 'disproportionately harm' low-income Texas Latinas and those living in rural and underserved areas, according to a legislative report released jointly by the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health and the Center for Reproductive Rights."

[CN: Disablist language] Google's founders are creating a new company called Alphabet: "What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main Internet products contained in Alphabet instead." Okay then!

All righty: "Harvard professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig will explore campaigning for the presidency as a Democrat, the New York Times reported. 'The reason I've been driven to this is the constant 'emperor wears no clothes' feeling about this election,' he said. 'We need a plan for unrigging the system first, and none of them have given us that plan.' Lessig said he would enter the campaign if he could raise $1 million by Sept. 7. He also said in his campaign announcement video that he would run as a 'referendum candidate' in the Democratic primaries if the party's leading candidates did not commit to making campaign financing reform their top priority if elected president. ...The 'referendum president,' Lessig said, would remain in office just long enough to enact financing reform before stepping aside in favor of the vice-president." His announcement video is here.

In other presidential news: "Rick Perry, who has struggled to gain traction in his second presidential run, has stopped paying his staff at the national headquarters in Austin as well as in the early caucus and primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, according to a Republican familiar with the Perry campaign who demanded anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. Perry campaign manager Jeff Miller told staff last Friday, the day after the first Republican presidential debate, that they would no longer be paid and are free to look for other jobs." Sad trombone!

[CN: Homophobia] "A state judicial conduct board in Ohio has said state judges cannot refuse to marry same-sex couples because of personally held religious or moral beliefs. Moreover, the board found that refusing to marry all couples, an often thinly veiled display of anti-gay animus intended to thwart LGBT couples from being wed, could be interpreted as a biased move that would disqualify a judge from any case in which sexual orientation is an issue." GOOD.

If you love celebrity political news, then you may be excited to hear that Melissa Gilbert (the actress best known for playing Laura Ingalls Wilder on Little House on the Prairie) is running for Congress in Michigan's 8th Congressional District. As a Democrat. Good luck, Melissa Gilbert!

More cool space news: "NASA discovers a new exoplanet that orbits two stars instead of one: Just like Tatooine of Star Wars fame, this newly found exoplanet orbits two stars instead of one. This marks the 10th so-called circumbinary planet found by NASA's Kepler Mission. These planets are proving to be more common than we'd ever thought possible, and the new discovery indicates that even more might be hiding out of sight. The planet has been dubbed Kepler-453b, and it's in the habitable or 'Goldilocks' zone of its stars. That means it's the right distance from its host stars to potentially hold liquid water. Scientists love finding planets in the zone, because it means there's at least a faint hope that the worlds could be receptive to life."

Good news for pets in Illinois: "Senate Bill 125, signed by Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner on Friday, makes it a Class A misdemeanor if a pet is injured or dies from being left outside. This goes for both the extreme heat or cold. The new law says you could also be fined up to $2,500 or spend up to a year in jail." Only a misdemeanor, but it's a start!

Whoa! "Stunningly Detailed Sculptures Carved from Pencil Tips by Bosnian Artist." Those are amazing.

And finally! OMG BABY MEERKATS SQUEEEEEEE!