(2) Corruption is Legal in America

This Ad Was Rejected By The Oscars For Being “Too Graphic”, But It Shows The Reality Of A New Mom As Hollywood’s A-list celebrities were walking down the red carpet at this year’s Academy Awards, a new Frida Mom postpartum ad was causing controversy for not being accepted to the party. ABC refused to show the commercial during their three-hour broadcast of the Oscars, saying it was “too graphic”. The clip shows a new mom during the first days after giving birth, facing the effects it has had on her body. There’s the postpartum belly, the mesh underwear she received at the hospital, her problematic journey to the bathroom, and the pad she must wear as her body continues to bleed. ABC explained their reasoning by citing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences guidelines: “Advertisement of the following is not permitted: Political candidates/positions, religious or faith-based message/position, guns, gun shows, ammunition, feminine hygiene products, adult diapers, condoms or hemorrhoid remedies.”

The History of Europe from 400 BC to the Present, Animated in 12 Minutes What does the future of Europe look like? Geopolitical times such as these do make one ponder such questions as, say, "In what shape (if any) will the European Union make it through this century?" But as any historian of Europe knows, that continent has seldom had an easy time of it: European history is a history of conquests, rebellions, alliances made and broken, and of course, wars aplenty — a major piece of the rationale behind the creation of organizations like the European Union in the first place. As a result, the division of Europe by the many groups and individuals who have laid claim to pieces of it has, over the past 2500 years, seldom held steady for long, as you can see on the animated map above. The Roman Empire did manage to paint the map red, literally, in the second and third centuries, but during all eras before and after it looks as multicolored as it was politically disunited.

Koch donors worried Trump may lose, seek to preserve GOP Senate majority Charles Koch, head of Koch Industries. Bo Rader | Wichita Eagle | Tribune News Service | Getty Images Libertarian and conservative donors who attended the annual Koch network summit over the weekend discussed the need to defend the GOP majority in the Senate as a backstop in case a Democrat defeats President Donald Trump in November. People at the meeting in Palm Springs, California, didn’t just fret about progressive candidates Sens. Doomsday Clock Set At 100 Seconds To Midnight, Issuing Dire Warning Of Apocalypse Topline: The Doomsday Clock was set 100 seconds to midnight Thursday⁠—20 seconds closer than its previous time⁠—indicating that the world is closer to the apocalypse than it has been since the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists began tracking it over 70 years ago. During a Thursday press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., former California governor Jerry Brown, Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland, and former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon unveiled the clock’s new time.Rachel Bronson, the group’s president and CEO, said, “Today we feel no more optimistic” about the world’s outlook, and that the current environment is unstable due to inaction on climate change and a precarious nuclear landscape, and urged the world’s leaders to act on these two issues, or else disaster will occur.“If decision makers fail to act, citizens around the world should echo the words of climate activist Greta Thunberg and say, ‘How dare you?’” Big number: 17 minutes.

COVID Underdogs: Mongolia - Indi Samarajiva - Medium The best COVID-19 response in the world Mongolia has had the best COVID-19 response in the world. Not only do they have zero deaths, they have zero local transmissions. Mongolia didn’t flatten the curve or crush the curve — they were just like ‘fuck curves’. In Mongolia, there simply wasn't an epidemic at all. Culture - The photos that changed history “You wait for things to come together, and it all has to happen in a hundredth of a second,” says the Magnum photographer Ian Berry. “Because very frequently you don’t have another chance.” Click on the play button above the story to watch the video. Berry captured a pivotal moment in South African history: the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March, 1960. Sixty-nine men, women and children died and at least 180 were injured when police fired at a crowd of protestors in the township near Vereeniging. “I walked back to the car, and the cops opened fire,” says the British photographer in this video, the first in the new series Through the Lens, which marks the 70th anniversary of Magnum Photos.

Manafort held secret talks with Assange in Ecuadorian embassy, sources say Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and visited around the time he joined Trump’s campaign, the Guardian has been told. Sources have said Manafort went to see Assange in 2013, 2015 and in spring 2016 – during the period when he was made a key figure in Trump’s push for the White House. In a statement, Manafort denied meeting Assange.

Broccoli Is Dying. Corn Is Toxic. Long Live Microbiomes! Editor’s Note (9/3/2019): This post has been substantially rewritten to change or eliminate claims and sourcing that did not meet Scientific American’s editorial standards. The revised post can be found here. As food writer Mark Bittman recently remarked, since food is defined as “a substance that provides nutrition and promotes growth” and poison is “a substance that promotes illness,” then “much of what is produced by industrial agriculture is, quite literally, not food but poison.” Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. Eliminating pesticides and transitioning to organic regenerative farming can get us back on track to nutritious food, restore microbiomes and protect our health. Let’s break all this down, and then talk solutions.