Katie Bouman was a PhD student in computer science and artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) when, three years ago, she led the creation of an algorithm that would eventually lead to an image of a supermassive black hole at the heart of the Messier 87 galaxy, some 55m light years from Earth, being captured for the first time.
via Katie Bouman: the 29-year-old whose work led to first black hole photo | Science | The Guardian
Rumor has it Marvel Studios’ upcoming film, The Eternals, could feature the first openly gay character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. No one has confirmed that yet and, in fact, no one has formally confirmed The Eternals is even happening. However, at the recent junket for Avengers: Endgame, we asked Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige about the accuracy of that rumor and if LGBTQ heroes are something fans can expect to see in future Marvel movies.
“Well it’s accurate in that we’ve talked about [it for] a long time,” Feige told io9. “You look at the success of Captain Marvel and Black Panther. We want the movies to reflect the audience and we want every member of our global audience to see themselves reflected on the screen. And that’s what we’ve been doing for a long time. And certainly, that’s what we’re focusing on going forward.”
On Wednesday, Ohio Republicans in the House approved an even more restrictive version of the so-called “heartbeat bill” passed by the state Senate in March, taking the state one step closer towards enacting one of the most draconian abortion restrictions in the country. The state’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine has already promised he will sign the bill into law.
SB 23, which has since been chillingly renamed the “Human Rights Protection Act” by the House’s Health Committee, would prohibit people from getting abortions once a heartbeat can be detected, which can occur as early as six weeks into one’s pregnancy. As Linda Greenhouse pointed out in an op-ed in the New York Times, that six-week cutoff date is so early into a pregnancy that the embryo is “not yet even considered a fetus.” If the bill becomes law, doctors in Ohio who perform abortions after detecting a heartbeat would face being charged with a felony and up to a year in prison, and face additional fines of up to $20,000. While it has an exception if the person’s life is in danger, there is no exception in cases of rape or incest.
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via Ohio's Anti-Abortion Heartbeat Bill One Step Closer to Becoming Law
Kirsten Gillibrand, a senator and now-Democratic presidential primary candidate who risked losing the support of big donors and some centrist Democrats by calling for Al Franken’s resignation, will continue to call out Congress for their failure to adequately address sexual assault in the workplace, on college campuses, in the military—and in Congress. She reiterated her support for victims of sexual misconduct at a CNN Town Hall on Tuesday night, and pledged to continue to fight for legislation to combat assault and harassment.
“I believe deeply that we have to end sexual violence in this country. Because fundamentally it goes to a very simple question: do we value women?” she said. “And unfortunately, there’s a lot of evidence that we don’t.”
Democratic presidential hopefuls will face off in a public forum on LGBTQ issues this fall. The event, slated for National Coming Out Day on October 10, marks the first time Democratic candidates have debated queer issues since 2008, when Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, and Barack Obama faced off in a Human Rights Campaign Foundation forum.
A lot has changed in the past 11 years. For one thing, there’s an openly gay candidate in the race now (South Bend, IN, mayor Pete Buttigieg), reflecting the dramatic shift in attitudes toward LGBTQ people symbolized most prominently in the legalization of same-sex marriage. Whereas only one candidate in 2008—Kucinich, then an Ohio congressman—spoke out in favor of same-sex marriage, there is little apparent daylight between the 2020 candidates’ current stances on LGBTQ rights. There has also been a major cultural awakening around transgender rights and gender identity.
via Here's Every 2020 Democrat's History on LGBTQ Rights
“When it comes from people, like Ivanka, I will say, that can post all day pictures of her children that are just in her home and ‘oh my daughter is having trouble in her crib’ or ‘my daughter is doing this’ and ‘my daughter is doing this,’ there are children out there that don’t have that opportunity,” Teigen said, according to The Hill. “There are children that are completely … honestly, I cannot fathom for a second how scared our children would be if they were without us.”
via Chrissy Teigen Tells House Democrats That Women Should Say ‘Fuck You’ More Often
A newly-political Taylor Swift donated $113,000 to a pro-LGBTQ group in her adopted home state of Tennessee.
In addition to the princely sum Swift gave to the Tennessee Equality Project, which “advocates for the equal rights of LGBTQ people in Tennessee,” she also included a nice handwritten note, which read:
via Taylor Swift Donated a Bunch of Money to a Tennessee LGBTQ Advocacy Group
“It was really disrespectful to survivors to have Kavanaugh and everything he represents to teach at a branch of our university,” Sarah Kurian, a sophomore at George Mason and a member of Mason For Survivors, told Jezebel. Kurian, who says she was sexually assaulted her freshman year by a classmate, connected Kavanaugh’s appointment to her own experiences filing a Title IX complaint. She ultimately lost her case, she said, “because it was my statement versus his statement.” Of the law school’s decision to hire Kavanaugh, she said, “It just shows that we really haven’t taken that many steps forward in caring about the issue of sexual assault.” Kavanaugh, she added, “is just a symptom of a bigger issue within our administration.”
via George Mason Students Protest School's Hiring of Brett Kavanaugh
Stalking takes different forms – don’t excuse it. Victims of all sorts of crimes often doubt and blame themselves.
No-one asks to be stalked.
Make a note of everything. How you feel is as powerful as physical evidence in this crime.
Believe me – if it started with a seemingly innocent bunch of flowers, but escalated to the point that you were afraid to leave the house – you would find it hard to remember each odd thing that had built up to this terrible situation.
Tell someone: all my neighbours, friends and closest colleagues knew about my situation and I found enormous reassurance in their protection.
Tell the police if you can.
via Alex Lovell: ‘He said he was close enough to smell my hair’ – BBC News
The Slack engineer who got thousands of tech workers to pledge not to build tools that target Muslims and immigrants
The election happens. The next day at the Slack office, people were quite literally sobbing in the cafeteria. I was mostly keeping my shit together until my parents called from Canada. I went into one of the little phone booths and just sobbed on the phone. It took a bit of time to grieve, but then you also have to act. The space that Maciej1 created in Tech Solidarity was incredibly important. To show up at that first meeting at the Stripe offices and see hundreds of other people who are figuring out what the hell to do next was incredibly gratifying. “Oh, Joe who works over at the security team at a text-editor company actually cares about the fate of Muslim people in America.” There were lots of pleasant surprises like that.
