In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Guns; violence; death; Islamophobia] Last week, three young Muslim men were shot and killed in Fort Wayne, Indiana: "The bodies of 23-year-old Mohamedtaha Omar, 20-year-old Adam Kamel Mekki and 17-year-old Muhannad Adam Tairab were found Wednesday evening by officers responding to a 'problem unknown' dispatch. Police Chief Garry Hamilton told WANE-TV each was shot multiple times, and Safety Director Rusty York said authorities don't have any reason to believe the killings were a hate crime. The families of the three were from central Africa and belonged to a community that is heavily Muslim, Hamilton and York told the (Fort Wayne) Journal-Gazette. Darfur People's Association founder and vice president Motasim Adam, who visited with the families Saturday, told The Associated Press on Sunday that Omar and Tairab were Muslim and Mekki was Christian." Al-Jazeera, among other media outlets, noted that their murders have "barely caused a ripple" in the news. That is partly because of who we value as victims, and, increasingly, because of our collective inurement to shooting deaths, by virtue of their sickening frequency.

[CN: Guns; death; domestic violence. Video may autoplay at link.] Prince William County, Virginia, police officer Ashley Guindon was killed Saturday night after only one day on the job. Two other officers were injured. They were responding to a domestic violence incident, in which a woman had been shot and killed. My condolences to Officer Guindon's family, friends, and colleagues, and to those who knew and loved the victim whose death to which she was responding. I have seen this story being filed under the (erroneous) "war on cops" narrative, and one thing I want to note is that a number of police officers killed every year are killed while responding to domestic violence calls. That's not indicative of a "war on cops" so much as it is indicative of the culture of violent entitlement and toxic masculinity.

[CN: Racism; police brutality] Rage-makingly familiar: "On Saturday night, two Salt Lake City officers shot a black teenager in his torso because he refused orders to drop his weapon—a broomstick. The shooting, which left the teen in critical condition, led to clashes between protesters and police. The Salt Lake City Police Department says the shooting occurred when two officers saw two men, including 17-year-old Abdi Mohamed, attacking another man with metal objects. In the officers' version of events, Mohamed refused to drop his weapon and moved to attack the victim, prompting the officers to open fire. But witness Selam Mohammad says that his friend was holding a broomstick and 'barely even turned around' before the officers started shooting." Police said; witnesses said. I desperately hope that Mohamed will recover.

[CN: Misogynoir; violence; police misconduct] Shaker Bruno passes along this story about The Grim Sleeper serial killer, most of whose victims were black women under the age of 35, with the apt note (quoted with his permission): "A story about the systemic dehumanization of black women, with a woefully deceptive and nonsense headline."

[CN: Domestic violence] Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is infamously silent during Supreme Court hearings, never asking questions of the attorneys who present to the Court. But today he "broke 10 years of silence and provoked audible gasps...when he posed questions from the bench during an oral argument." Naturally, it was to ask the wooooooorst question: "The court is considering an appeal from two Maine men who say their guilty pleas for hitting their partners should not disqualify them from gun ownership. With about 10 minutes left in the hourlong session, Justice Department lawyer Ilana Eisenstein was about to sit down after asking the justices if there were no further questions. Thomas then caught her by surprise, asking whether a misdemeanor conviction of any other law 'suspends a constitutional right.'" I am, of course, disgusted by the fact that he opens his mouth after a decade in order to challenge whether men who have committed domestic violence should have their right to own guns infringed. But I am also touched by the fact that it was only after his friend and colleague Antonin Scalia, known for being a tenacious questioner, died that Thomas spoke up, as if to fill the silence that Scalia left.

[CN: Misogyny] Another great piece on Clinton by Sady Doyle: "America loves women like Hillary Clinton–as long as they're not asking for a promotion."

Beautiful: "A new image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope features a rare Wolf-Rayet star. The star, known as WR 31a, is part of the Carina constellation and lies some 30,000 light-years from Earth. WR 31a appears surrounded by a blue bubble—an interstellar cloud composed of gas and dust."

This report is garbage for identifying actress Charlotte Riley in the headline only as "Tom Hardy's wife" and for describing Riley, who recently gave birth to their first child together, breast pumping as "relieving her aching boobs," but it's the only place I saw the description of Hardy being caught hovering outside the bathroom during the Oscars last night and matter-of-factly explaining: "I'm just waiting for my wife to finish breast pumping in the bathroom. She has to do it every hour." I just kind of love how he didn't go for a joke, as so many men do, and just gave a straightforward comment that normalizes breast pumping. A+.

And finally! "Meet Gimo, the Cat with the Biggest Eyes Ever." Awwwwwww lol!