#society
Oregon Man Can’t Get Back to Normal After Being Wrongfully Convicted of Child Sexual Abuse
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In 2017, Josh Horner was found guilty of sexually abusing a child. Sentenced to 50-years in prison – essentially the rest of his life – he only served 18 months after the Oregon Innocence Project looked into his case and found multiple errors, which resulted in his exoneration. Even though he received numerous apologies, his previous life is ruined. The National Registry of Exonerations tells the story of 42-year old Josh Horner who was wrongly convicted of sexually abusing a child by a non-unanimous jury – a practice every state but Oregon has banned – and sentenced to l...
Tesla Autopilot Veers off Highway as Driver Locked Out of All Controls
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Tesla cars are trying to kill their drivers… again. A New Jersey man reportedly almost died after his rogue Tesla recently decided to crash off the highway. A man from North Brunswick, New Jersey, is lucky to be alive after his vehicle’s so-called “autopilot” mode took control and plowed into several objects before coming to a sudden halt. Even though the driver tried to take control of the Tesla and override the “autopilot,” – which split the difference and went down “the middle” before veering off the highway entirely and crashing – the vehicle “would not let him.” Wh...
NYC Commission on Human Rights Outlaws Hair and Hairstyle-Based Discrimination
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On Monday, the New York City Human Rights Commission released new guidelines protecting New Yorkers from being discriminated due to their hair texture or style. The guidance gives New Yorkers the right to “maintain natural hair or hairstyles that are closely associated with their racial, ethnic or cultural identities” and classifies any attempt to single people out based on their hair or hairstyle as racial discrimination. The protections apply to everyone but were prompted largely by what the commission calls “racist stereotypes that black hairstyles are unprofessional....
Check Your “Privilege List”: New York School Gives Points for Being White, Male, or Straight
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A New York public high school recently gave students in one class a “privilege reflection form” that’s turning more than a few heads. Thus, if you are an overweight black blind gay transgender woman from the Middle East and are planning to become a “scientist,” you’ve got zero chance of being among the “privileged” few… Saratoga Springs High School students have recently been asked to score their “privilege status” based on a variety of factors using a special “privilege reflection form,” which raised concerns among parents worried about the assignment’s underlying messag...
CBS Turns to Artificial Intelligence to Glean Viewers’ Emotional Responses to TV Shows
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CBS’s research team has resorted to using the dispassionate logic of machines to get a faster read on how viewers respond emotionally to its TV shows. The broadcaster started using the data-analytics platform developed by New York startup Canvs, which uses proprietary artificial-intelligence processing (AI) to parse natural-language comments. CBS first started using the Canvs Surveys tool to automate the coding of open-ended responses to surveys fielded by its research team starting in the fourth quarter of 2018. Now it uses Canvs to process feedback on its entire slate...
February 21: The Battle of Valverde, the Founding of NASCAR, and Other Events of the Date
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A number of important events have taken place on February 21 in U.S. history. Here is our take on the most interesting and valuable of them. 1862 – American Civil War: Engagements in Confederate Arizona: the Battle of Valverde We’ve covered a number of battles fought in Mississippi, Virginia, and Tennessee, but how about the battles fought in the Wild Wild West? The Battle of Valverde, or the Battle of Valverde Ford, was fought from February 20 to 21, 1862, near the town of Valverde at a ford in Valverde Creek in Confederate Arizona, in what is today the state of New Mex...
“This Is America” Reveals a Shocking Vision of the United States
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The Grammy Awards are the second of the three most significant musical achievement awards in the United States. Two of the anticipated awards that many fans of this event look forward to learning are the Song of the Year and the Record of the Year. The Song of the Year is awarded to the songwriters of a given song, where the Record of the Year goes to the artists, producers and engineers involved in crafting the recording (the “record”) of a song. Both categories are huge and both usually go to an artist or organization responsible for a pop song. It also happens to be t...
Global Cooling: New Generation No Longer Has the Basic Instinct
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CALIFORNIA - February 20, 2019 According to a fundamental article from the authoritative the Atlantic, there’s something strange with the love lives of those of the new generation, at least in developed countries. All circumstances would seem to suggest that there should be a flourishing of universal, free, and carefree love for the younger generations. Take, for example, the relatively young American Millennials (born in the early 1980s and after) and Generation Z (born in the mid-1990s to mid-2000s). The percentage of those who believe that to enter into an intimate r...
“M”, “F”, “U” or “X”: Airlines to Provide New Gender Options on Passengers’ Tickets
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In a move to be more “inclusive” to the transgender community, some airlines are planning to add more gender options for their ticketed passengers. Air travelers in the U.S. will soon be able to select gender options other than “male” or “female” when booking their flights. The shift toward more inclusive gender options comes after two major trade organizations, Airlines for America (A4A) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA), adopted more inclusive international standards for all fliers. Moreover, from June 1, A4A and IATA will allow member airlines to...