In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Nuclear warfare] President Obama gave an address in Hiroshima, Japan, today: "In the image of a mushroom cloud that rose into these skies, we are most starkly reminded of humanity's core contradiction. How the very spark that marks us as a species, our thoughts, our imagination, our language, our toolmaking, our ability to set ourselves apart from nature and bend it to our will—those very things also give us the capacity for unmatched destruction. ...The world was forever changed here, but today the children of this city will go through their day in peace. What a precious thing that is. It is worth protecting, and then extending to every child. That is a future we can choose, a future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare but as the start of our own moral awakening." Here is the entire text of his speech.

[CN: Rape culture] Here are my friends Jessica Luther and Dan Solomon on what's happening at Baylor. It is in large part because of their reporting, and because of their sensitive and unyielding commitment to survivors, that Baylor has now fired its football coach and demoted its president. Brave survivors and relentless reporters who made themselves trustworthy. I am so proud to know Jess and Dan.

RIP Hedy Epstein: "Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, 91, died at her home in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, on May 26, 2016. An internationally renowned, respected, and admired advocate for human and civil rights, Hedy was encircled by friends who lovingly cared for her at home." My condolences to her family, friends, colleagues, and admirers.

[CN: Self-harm] Sheila Foster Anthony, the sister of Vince Foster, has written a piece for the Washington Post about Donald Trump exploiting her brother's death to try to harm Hillary Clinton: "It is beyond contempt that a politician would use a family tragedy to further his candidacy, but such is the character of Donald Trump displayed in his recent comments to The Washington Post. In this interview, Trump cynically, crassly and recklessly insinuated that my brother, Vincent W. Foster Jr., may have been murdered because 'he had intimate knowledge of what was going on' and that Hillary Clinton may have somehow played a role in Vince's death. How wrong. How irresponsible. How cruel. ...For Trump to raise these theories again for political advantage is wrong. I cannot let such craven behavior pass without a response." I am so desperately sorry she had to write this.

I mean: "Fox, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC all featured this shot of an empty podium waiting for a Donald Trump press conference this afternoon. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was in Las Vegas discussing her plans to raise incomes for working families."

Hahahahahahaha: "Hillary Clinton is the unofficial winner of the Kentucky Democratic presidential primary after a recanvass of results, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Grimes announced Thursday. Bernie Sanders's campaign earlier this week asked Kentucky officials to review the votes from last week's primary after the results showed Clinton beating Sanders by just half a percentage point. The recanvass began Thursday morning. The State Board of Elections will certify the results on May 31 at 10 a.m., Grimes tweeted. 'The unofficial winner of Kentucky's Democratic presidential primary remains Hillary Clinton,' Grimes said at the press conference on Thursday." Welp, that's probably not how Jeff Weaver had hoped that would pan out!

"Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg doesn't like a Supreme Court operating with only eight justices... 'Eight, as you know, is not a good number for a multi-member court,' Ginsburg said Thursday at a New York conference for judges and lawyers. 'When we meet...next year, I anticipate reporting on the decisions of a full bench.'" From your mouth to Republican obstructionists' ears!

[CN: Illness] Yikes: "For the first time, researchers have found a person in the United States carrying bacteria resistant to antibiotic of last resort, an alarming development that the top U.S. public health official says could signal 'the end of the road' for antibiotics. The antibiotic-resistant strain was found last month in the urine of a 49-year-old Pennsylvania woman. Defense Department researchers determined that she carried a strain of E. coli resistant to the antibiotic colistin, according to a study published Thursday in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology. The authors wrote that the discovery 'heralds the emergence of a truly pan-drug resistant bacteria.'" As someone with an autoimmune disorder, I'm pretty terrified by this, even though I knew it was coming.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] "At 96, Dr. Heimlich finally uses his life-saving technique: When he heard that a resident was choking, Perry Gaines, maître d' for the Deupree House dining room, ran toward the table. Gaines has been trained in the Heimlich maneuver and has performed it at least twice in the two years he has worked at the Hyde Park senior living facility. When Gaines arrived at the table, Dr. Henry Heimlich, a 96-year-old resident of the Deupree House who invented the famous technique for clearing a blocked airway, was standing behind the woman, ready to perform it. Typically, a staff member would do it. 'But,' Gaines said, pausing, 'it is Dr. Heimlich.'" LOL! And yay for saving that lady, who made a full recovery right away.

And finally! "Sheep eat cannabis plants, terrorize town: "A group of sheep in South Wales are stirring up trouble after officials suspect they have ingested cannabis plants that were dumped by an illegal cannabis factory, UPI reports. ...It was reported that a flock of sheep has been seen about a Welsh village, apparently intruding on people's homes." Hey, don't blame the sheep that y'all left weed lying around and now they have the munchies!