In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

Well, it's officially official: Indiana Governor Mike Pence is Donald Trump's running mate. And their logo sure is, uh, interesting. TP is definitely appropriate, anyway. These two dangerous fools are going to TP the entire nation.

[CN: Bigotry] Trump is very positive on the emergent GOP platform, even though it absolutely chock full of aggressive indecency.

Meanwhile, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is hopeful that "Trump Is 'Going to Endeavor to Try' to Change." Sure. Sounds legit.

LOL: "Clinton Has a Team of Silicon Valley Stars; Trump Has Twitter: Clinton's tech team is already shaping up to be the largest in campaign history, and possibly the smartest. With the general election four months away, Hannon has assembled a team of more than 50 engineers and developers who left lucrative careers at places like Google, Facebook, and Twitter to help code Clinton's way to more votes, more dollars, and, if all goes according to plan, the White House. ...While Donald Trump has used the cable news cycle and social media masterfully to garner attention over the last year, he only hired an in-house digital director last month. And that, people familiar with the campaign say, is about the extent of his tech team." Welp!

This is just a real fucking headline in Politico today: "Has Hillary finally found her voice?" She found it like five decades ago. The real question is: Is the media listening?

[CN: Sexual violence; police brutality; descriptions of assault at link] Whoa: "Victim to Take Police Chiefs, City of Milwaukee to Court for Ignoring Predatory Cop's Crimes: 'Milwaukee Police Officers acting within the scope of employment and under color of law, and in contravention of clearly established law, raped, and sexually assaulted, battered, used excessive force and threats, obstructed, hindered, impeded, failed to aid, falsely arrested, and illegally detained Iema,' reads the federal lawsuit that Lemons filed in 2013. Lemons sued her attacker, Milwaukee police chiefs Nanette Hegerty and Edward Flynn for '[turning] a blind eye,' and the city for refusing to take action against Cates." She is so brave, and I take up space in solidarity with her.

[CN: War on agency] In good news: "A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked two Alabama abortion restrictions set to take effect August 1 that would ban abortion clinics near schools and criminalize the most commonly used later abortion procedure. In May, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R) signed into law a ban on abortion clinics within 2,000 feet of public K-8 schools. He also approved a separate measure banning the most common method of performing a later abortion, known as dilation and evacuation, or D&E, abortions. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenged both provisions on behalf of providers in the state, arguing they were unconstitutional."

Wow: "A collaboration of hundreds of scientists released the 'largest-ever, three-dimensional map of distant galaxies' with over 1.2 million spots as a part of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) program using a telescope in New Mexico, according to a press release from Brookhaven National Lab. The map isn't for wanderers; scientists are trying to understand some of the universe's unexplained properties, like what dark matter and dark energy are. Understanding those things requires a three-dimensional map bigger and looking further out than any map scientists have made prior."

Cool! "This may be the closest we ever get to landing on Pluto. A new video takes viewers on a ride nearly down to the dwarf planet's surface, stopping just above the rippled 'shoreline' of the vast nitrogen-ice plain known as Sputnik Planum. But this is no computer-generated experience. The video is composed of more than 100 photos captured over the course of six weeks by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft as it approached Pluto, and then, on July 14, 2015, flew within 7,800 miles (12,550 kilometers) of the frigid world's surface."

And finally! TOO CUTE: Lookalike animal pals from different species. Adorbz!!!