1. Harper Lee, Author of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ Dies at 89
2. Pope Francis and Donald Trump: Bridges or Walls?
“Donald Trump has never met a wall he doesn't love. He believes in border walls, in gated communities, in structures and policies that separate ‘us’ from ‘them’ — especially when "them" can be defined as immigrants or people of color or the poor.”
3. Facebook and Twitter Join Apple in Encryption Fight with FBI
Heads of Google, Whatsapp, Twitter, and more have expressed support for Apple CEO Tim Cook’s recent statement rejecting a court’s direction to help the FBI hack into a San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone.
4. Obama’s Budget Proposal Would Cut Funding for Abstinence-Only Sex Ed
“Over the past 25 years, Congress has spent over $1.5 billion on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, despite there being no study in a professional peer-reviewed journal that has found this method effective.”
“Hollywood must stop sacrificing the racial and cultural accuracy of its characters, whether they are historical or fictional, in order to cast white stars. If a character is described as being Korean, South African, or Peruvian, then cast actresses from those cultures! If biographies, novels, and scripts are vague in racial description, then for the love of all that is good, stop assuming they are white.
6. Brian McLaren: ‘It’s Time to Rewrite Pro-War Hymns’
And his most recent rewrite: ‘Onward Christian Soldiers.’
7. This Is How Boko Haram Is Trying to Turn Captives into Suicide Bombers
“It’s a pattern the militant Islamist sect has repeated with hundreds of people it has captured, most of them impoverished teenagers, forcing them to become fighters, decoys, or suicide bombers in crowded markets and bus parks. That tactic appears be taking another turn, this time aimed at showing that even those who’ve escaped the group can never be beyond its reach: Refugee camps are the latest targets.”
8. Global Warming Crushes Records. Again.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, January was the hottest one on record in 137 years of record keeping. 2015 was the hottest year, but 2016 is slated to be even hotter.
9. How Morals Influence Your Political Affiliation
“Much of Ditto and his colleagues’ work centers on the Moral Foundations Theory, a framework used by psychologists to conceptualize the core values that factor into human morality worldwide: harm, fairness, loyalty, authority/tradition, and purity.
‘You see these in all sorts of different cultures. These are the five major things that morality tends to deal with, but different groups differ in how much they weight each of those different kinds of factors.’”
Betty Friedan’s Feminist Mystique was published on this day in 1963. Here’s how new scholars are remembering and critiquing second-wave feminism.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!