Month: July 2019

Top officials at US Customs and Border Patrol reportedly knew about a Facebook group in which current and former agents routinely posted derogatory, inflammatory, and sometimes violent memes years before the group became public knowledge following a report by A.C. Thompson at ProPublica. That group may also not be the only one of its kind, according to reporting that found a second, smaller, but similar Facebook group.

An investigation by ProPublica earlier this week revealed that some 9,500 border patrol agents were part of a secret Facebook group where they shared sexist and racist memes, joked about the deaths …

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Sudan’s military and civilian leaders reach a power-sharing deal; Amsterdam’s first female mayor wants to reform the city’s red light district.

Sudanese military and protesters strike a deal

Bo Rader/Wichita Eagle/MCT via Getty Images

• After a weeks-long standoff, riddled with violent crackdowns on protests, Sudan’s ruling military council and pro-democracy civilian leaders have reached a power-sharing deal. [WSJ / Nicholas Bariyo]

Wage inequality in America falls especially hard on many women of color. While white women make 77 cents for every dollar a white man makes, black women make 61 cents, and Latina women make just 53. Now Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has released a plan aimed at closing those gaps.

The proposal, announced on Friday in an op-ed in Essence and fleshed out in a Medium post, includes a series of executive actions designed to hold companies that contract with the federal government accountable for how they pay women of color.

Warren pledges that if elected president, she will …

If you were worried President Donald Trump would use his July 4 “Salute to America” event as an opportunity to blast Democrats or the FBI in front of the Lincoln Memorial, you can rest easy. During the rain-soaked event, Trump avoided partisan politics, and instead focused on glorifying the US military — occasionally in completely and amusingly ahistorical ways.

At one point Trump, struggling to read his speech, claimed that the US military “took over the airports” during the Revolutionary War, which of course took place well over a century before airplanes were even invented.

“The Continental Army …

Allowing the Earth’s forests to recover could cancel out the majority of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to new research.

The worldwide assessment of current and potential forestation using satellite imagery appears Thursday in the journal Science. It shows that letting saplings regrow on land where forests have been cleared would increase global forested area by one-third and remove 205 billion metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere. That’s two thirds of the roughly 300 billion metric tons of carbon humans have put up there since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

The findings show forest restoration could be …

Stranger Things has always worn its heart on its sleeve and flown its nerd flag high. Season three leans into both impulses to deliver a story that’s fun and familiar, one that may seem like a retread of previous seasons. But Stranger Things fans who just want to hang out with their favorite characters from Hawkins, Indiana, are likely to enjoy it nonetheless.

Season three sees the gang mostly split up into smaller subgroups, each doing their own things. But they’re still dealing with the Upside Down, and they each become entangled in different threads of a convoluted web of …

One week after her story drew national attention, Marshae Jones, the Alabama woman who faced criminal charges after a shooting caused her to miscarry, will not be prosecuted, the Alabama district attorney announced Wednesday.

“After viewing the facts of this case and the applicable state law I have determined that it is not in the best interest of justice to pursue prosecution of Ms. Jones on the manslaughter charge for which she was indicted by the grand jury,” Jefferson County District Attorney Lynneice Washington said at a press conference. “Therefore, I am dismissing this case and no …

If, for whatever reason, you wanted everything you wore, touched, and ate to bear some relation to Stranger Things, this would not be impossible for you.

In advance of the show’s third season, Levi’s announced designed in collaboration with the series’ costume designers, with a lookbook shot on set. H&M to create a line of t-shirts, shorts, and swimwear inspired by the fictional Hawkins Community Pool (some of which will be worn by characters on-screen in season three) made Hawkins High School limited editions of three of its most popular sneakers.

You can also buy: Stranger Things Trivial …

Israel is currently being consumed by violent protests over the killing of an unarmed Ethiopian Israeli teen, leading to turned-over cars, burning tires, and even a few injuries.

An off-duty police officer killed 19-year-old Solomon Tekah on Sunday after the bullet he shot at the ground bounced up and mortally wounded the teenager. While the cop may be charged with negligent homicide, it’s clearly not enough for the aggrieved Ethiopian community of the Jewish state.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets to express their anger. Demonstrators shut down 12 major junctions across the country, including in the large city …

Post-credits scenes have long been a Marvel movie tradition, to give fans an extra little shot of excitement, tease out future movies or throw in a cameo of, say, an esoteric comic book character.

That seemed to come to a startling end with April’s Avengers: Endgame, which didn’t have any additional post-credits scenes. This move allowed the events of that movie to stand on their own and let the audience focus said moments instead of hyping up the next big thing. That has since changed with June 28’s re-release of the film, which adds unfinished, deleted …