Greetings and Happy Friday, everyone. We’ve got a little bit about the 2016 U.S. elections, a talented student, plus the usual bits of entertainment news. Let’s get started:
Fourteen-year-old Ahmed Mohamed was arrested in Irving, Texas, when his teachers thought the clock he made was a bomb. Despite him repeatedly telling them, “It’s a clock,” he still got hauled away in handcuffs. Ridiculous.
People started sharing their support for the student via Twitter and various other social media sites right away:
Dream scenario: @BillNye and @neiltyson go down to Irvine, TX and help that kid arrested for taking a home engineered clock to school.
— Maureen Johnson (@maureenjohnson) September 16, 2015
Assumptions and fear don't keep us safe—they hold us back. Ahmed, stay curious and keep building. https://t.co/ywrlHUw3g1
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 16, 2015
Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great.
— President Obama (@POTUS44) September 16, 2015
Ahmed is not the only student of color to be arrested for a science project.
Politics:
In the UK, Jeremy Corbyn has won the Labour party leadership race with over 59% of the vote. My knowledge of what comes next is so far limited, but I imagine this is like a candidate earning a party nomination for President, and then they go onto run against the other political parties? Forgive my ignorance; I am still learning. If one of our regular UK commenters would like to explain, I’m all ears.
Back in the U.S., Rick Perry has dropped out of the Republican Party Presidential primary… to the sadness and surprise of almost no one, I’d expect.
And speaking of that clown car full of candidates, the GOP had another debate last night. Here’s NPR’s roundup as it happened.
California is considering automatic voter registration, much like Oregon’s program enacted this year.
In Other News:
We’re still learning a whole lot more about Pluto, particularly when it comes to the range and complexity of its landforms.
Around 4,000 of the firefighters in California are prisoners making $1 per hour, leaving many wondering if this is just a form of slave labor.
You may have donated money to the Red Cross over the years for various natural disaster relief funds, perhaps including Haiti. You may want to consider sending your funds elsewhere as a new report finds that the organization has only built six houses in Haiti, despite raising half a billion dollars.
The annual income for U.S. authors is officially below the poverty line… and every writer reading this story just nodded sadly.
R.I.P.
Pulitzer-winning playwright Frank D. Gilroy has died at age 89 from natural causes.
Two crew members —American film pilot Alan Purwin and Carlos Berl of Colombia — working on the latest Tom Cruise film, Mena, died in a plane crash late last week. A third person, pilot Jimmy Lee Garland, was seriously injured.
In Entertainment:
The Miss America Pageant has finally apologized for slut-shaming Vanessa Williams in 1983. Williams performed a song on the show last Sunday.
Tom Hardy has no time for your ill-considered sexuality questions.
The National Book Awards longlist is out. I haven’t read any of the books nominated, but perhaps some of you have?
Heeeee… Someone on Jeopardy! got Alex Trebec to say “Turd Ferguson.”
And finally, Season 9 of Doctor Who premieres tomorrow, September 19. Hooray!
Until next time, unicorns!
3 replies on “Friday News Bites: #IStandWithAhmed, GOP Debate + More:”
Hey, the link for the story about the firefighters is pointing to the same thing as the Pluto story. Thought you might want to know.
Oops! It’s fixed now; thanks for letting us know.
Thank you, trusty editor! :D