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Year: 2018

Three Things Netflix’s Controversial ‘Fat-Shaming’ Series Insatiable Gets Right

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(Conversation) – Netflix’s controversial Insatiable (2018) is the story of a teen who loses weight and competes in beauty pageants. Some people have said the show promotes fat-shaming and disordered eating. Thousands of viewers   have called for it to pulled from Netflix. However, despite the show’s problems, it does shed light on other issues facing young women. Insatiable tells the story of Patty (Debbie Ryan), an overweight teen who has spent her life being relentlessly bullied. After an altercation that causes Patty to have her jaw wired shut for…

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Japan Killing Whales in Antarctic Protected Area

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Antarctic (WWF) – Japanese whalers have killed more than 50 minke whales this year in the Ross Sea Marine Protected Area (MPA) in Antarctica, WWF revealed on the opening day of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Brazil. Harvesting krill and fishing is banned in the Ross Sea MPA special protection zone, yet Japan is able to conduct whaling in this unique natural area through a “scientific whaling” loophole. WWF is calling on the IWC and the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) to work together…

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As Months Pass in Chicago Shelters, Immigrant Children Contemplate Escape, Even Suicide

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Chicago, IL (ProPublica) – One 16-year-old from Guatemala said he wanted to “quitarme la vida,” or “take my life away,” as he waited to be released from a Chicago shelter for immigrant children. He was kept there for at least 584 days. A 17-year-old from Guinea went on a hunger strike, telling staff members he refused to eat until he saw evidence they were trying to find him a home. He was released nearly nine months after he entered a shelter. And a 10-month-old boy, forcibly separated from his father at…

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Women Activists in the DRC Show How Effective Alliances Can Be Forged

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DRC (Conversation) – The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been called the worst place in the world to be a woman. Sexual violence and rape are considered defining features of the civil war in the eastern part of the country. This narrative has been reinforced by documentaries like The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, and The Man Who Mends Women. And more recently, news reports have shown that women cannot even trust the people who came to the rescue as mothers have started to speak up about abuse…

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Building Housing on Flood Plains Another Sign of Growing Inequality

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World Wide (Conversation) – Many cities around the world face a lack of affordable housing in and around expensive central business districts. Employers want cheaper labourers, who need more affordable housing in accordance with their lower salaries, to live nearby. So developers are invited to build on flood plains, without consequences. And often there is no public involvement in the decision. Flood plains are easy to build on because they are flat and, in cities, they tend to be close to amenities. Yet all parties involved in housing know that…

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Support Grows for Killer Robots Ban

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(HRW) – Opposition to the creation of so-called “killer robots” – weapons systems that could select and attack targets without any human intervention – is growing. The issue has been hotly debated since 2013, when the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots began calling for a preemptive ban on the development, production, and use of such technology. The group has repeatedly warned that these weapons could have devastating consequences for civilian populations around the world. The only way to stop the development of fully autonomous weapons is through national laws and…

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PRISON LABOR IS SLAVE LABOR, AND WE SHOULD GET RID OF IT

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US (OW) – As wildfires rage across California, some of the people risking their lives to fight them are paid only a few dollars a day. They’re part of a 2.3 million-strong underclass of American employees making sweatshop wages: incarcerated workers. Slave wages are just one of the many reasons why incarcerated people around the U.S. on strike. The strike was organized in response to deadly violence at Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina earlier this year, a result of the prison’s abysmal living conditions. Organizers have a list of 10 demands, which include the…

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Why there’s so much inconsistency in school shooting data

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United States (Conversation) – How many school shootings happen in the U.S. in a single school year? The answer is surprisingly hard to figure out. In April, the U.S. Department of Education released a report on the 2015-2016 school year, stating that “nearly 240 schools (0.2 percent of all schools) reported at least 1 incident involving a school-related shooting.” However, the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety’s database lists only 29 school shootings for the same period. When National Public Radio investigated the inconsistency, they found that 161 of the Department…

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‘Cancer on Steroids’ 15 Men Exposed to 9/11 Wreckage Now Have Breast Cancer

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New York, NY (Sputnik) – Over a dozen men who were in the vicinity of the World Trade Center after the September 11, 2001, attacks destroyed the towers have acquired breast cancer – a statistical rarity for men, of whom only 1 percent nationwide will get the illness, the New York Post reported. When the two 110-story World Trade Towers collapsed after airliners smashed into them on the morning of September 11, 2001, the huge pile of rubble and building debris blew an enormous cloud of dust into the sky, and the fires at Ground Zero burned for months,…

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Why Chromebooks are decent, cheap, and versatile machines

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US (PT) – After the purchase of an ACER Chromebook 15, which came equipped with 16GB eMMC storage and 4GB of DDR3 ram. In this article I’m going to explain the benefits and versatility of this machine. General Chrome OSIn the very basics, the chrome Operating System (OS) is actually extremely effective and secure. All Chromebooks past 2016 have a bounty of 50k if you can effectively hack and install a modified APK without google catching it. Since in the first year the bounty was not claimed they doubled it. On another…

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