Saturday, December 21

Tag: finally

The Biden Administration Is Finally Making Moves To Free WNBA Star Brittney Griner From Russian Detention – After Initial Silence
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IN OTHER NEWS, POLITICS, SPORTS

The Biden Administration Is Finally Making Moves To Free WNBA Star Brittney Griner From Russian Detention – After Initial Silence

A week before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Russian authorities arrested American basketball star Brittney Griner at the Moscow airport. She was charged with drug smuggling after Russian officials allegedly found vape cartridges containing oil derived from cannabis in her luggage. Since her arrest on Feb. 17, Griner has been locked up in a Russian prison. It’s a stark contrast to her life as a millionaire athlete playing in professional basketball leagues in both the United States and, for the last seven years, Russia, where she earns nearly four times as much as her nearly US$282,000 annual WNBA salary. Speculation on the reason for Griner’s arrest centers on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s alleged desire to use the American star as a geopolitical pawn at a time when U.S.-...
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Finally Realizing Diversity Sells Victoria’s Secret Joins The ‘Inclusive Revolution,’
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BEAUTY

Finally Realizing Diversity Sells Victoria’s Secret Joins The ‘Inclusive Revolution,’

Victoria’s Secret recently announced a cast of new “angels.” They include American athlete Megan Rapinoe, actress and activist Priyanka Chopra Jonas and the brand’s first transgender model, Vanetina Sampaio. Together, they speak to a far more diverse image of beauty than was common for the once popular company. Victoria’s Secret learned a lesson other leading fashion brands and the industry at large are coming to realize: diversity sells. Better representation This isn’t surprising. For years, consumers have called for greater inclusion and better representation in mainstream fashion. And the industry’s most avant-garde players have already responded, including Rihanna’s much talked about Savage X Fenty and Summersalt’s “every body is a beach body” campaign. Consumers are willing to back...
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20 Years In The Making – Space Tourism Is Finally Ready For Launch
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TECHNOLOGY

20 Years In The Making – Space Tourism Is Finally Ready For Launch

For most people, getting to the stars is nothing more than a dream. On April 28, 2001, Dennis Tito achieved that lifelong goal – but he wasn’t a typical astronaut. Tito, a wealthy businessman, paid US$20 million for a seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to be the first tourist to visit the International Space Station. Only seven people have followed suit in the 20 years since, but that number is poised to double in the next 12 months alone. NASA has long been hesitant to play host to space tourists, so Russia – looking for sources of money post-Cold War in the 1990s and 2000s – has been the only option available for those looking for this kind of extreme adventure. However, it seems the rise of private space companies is going to make it easier for regular people to experience space. From...
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The Complicated Legacy Of The Pilgrims Is Finally Coming To Light 400 Years After They Landed In Plymouth
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LIFESTYLE

The Complicated Legacy Of The Pilgrims Is Finally Coming To Light 400 Years After They Landed In Plymouth

The 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ voyage to Plymouth will be celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic with a “remembrance ceremony” with state and local officials and a museum exhibit in Plymouth, England. IBM has even outfitted a replica of the Mayflower with an AI navigating system that will allow the ship to trace the course of the original journey without any humans on board. Plimoth Plantation, in Plymouth, Mass., is a living museum that’s a replica of the original settlement, which existed for 70 years. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA Yet as a scholar of early 17th-century New England, I’ve always been puzzled by the glory heaped on the Pilgrims and their settlement in Plymouth. Native Americans had met Europeans in scores of places before 1620, so yet another encounter was hardly...
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Journalism

Will Caster Semenya Be the One to Finally Bring Down Gender Policing?

On what basis do you exclude athletes because of who they are? Natural testosterone is a human condition. Caster Semenya, one of the world’s greatest female middle-distance runners, may be forced to quit the event she has dominated for a decade. After easily winning the 800-meter race at an international meet in Doha on May 3, the South African athlete was defiant in saying she won’t comply with new restrictions that will be placed on her at future competitions. “No man, or any other human, can stop me from running,” she said after the race, her first—and possibly last—competition since a controversial ruling by the supreme court of international sport. Her defiant words were in reaction to a horrible ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which denied an appeal b...
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Journalism

Cop Finally Gets His Due, Walter Scott’s Killer Sentenced To Prison

In America, we have been having a conversation about police brutality against black Americans. Despite the countless black people murdered unjustly by police, there is usually no justice. Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Keith Lamont Scott, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray…too many to mention here, really. All of those people were senselessly murdered by cops who chose to be their judges, juries, and executioners, and they did so with impunity and without consequence. However, there is hope, and it is coming out of South Carolina, of all places. North Charleston police officer Michael Slager murdered Walter Scott, a black man who was fleeing after a routine traffic stop in cold blood in 2015. He would have gotten away with it, too, had it not been for a citizen who was brave enough to tape the ...
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