Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Connie Schultz: 'So Long, Ladies,' Says GOP (Creators Syndicate)
It's nice to already know the Republicans' strategy as they lurch toward the long and bumpy road to someone else's presidency. Removes the mystery. Their new mantra, in GOP-speak: So long, ladies.
HENRY ROLLINS: I'M OFF TO SEE SOME DOLPHINS AND EAT SOME PIRANHA (LA Weekly)
Since I was very young, I have always been fascinated by rivers. I am no expert; I just think they are amazing on many levels. Where they sometimes appear calm on the surface, there is often a much different story going on underneath. As the water goes by, rivers are in a constant state of motion and change. There is something very musical and human about them.
Courtney Ferguson: Heading John Waters's Way? (The Stranger)
Hitchhiking with the Prince of Puke in Carsick.
I, Anonymous: Seattle Driving Etiquette Tip (The Stranger)
Sorry my consideration for human life so enraged you that you felt it necessary to lay on your horn, speed past me with a menacing look and raised middle finger, and then slam on your brakes in an attempt to force me to rear-end you.
Connie Schulz: Just for Fun, Pretend Your Next Breath Is Your Last (Creators Syndicate)
I smiled at [my 4-year-old grandson] as I reached for my blush brush and chirped, "I'm putting on my makeup, honey. It makes me look better." A few seconds passed as he continued to stare in the mirror, his brow slowly furrowing. Finally, he asked, "When does it start working?"
Matt Cowan: 6 Famous Sidekicks Who Deserved To Be In Charge (Cracked)
Sidekicks get a raw deal: always sidelined, ever-forgotten, and many of them are even replaceable. Seriously, Batman goes through Robins like rolls of toilet paper. They are often left out of the main events of the story, or expected to silently carry their burden while the lead takes all the credit. Which is a shame, really, because for every Watson who humbly plays beer-bitch to the much superior Holmes, there are other sidekicks who should clearly be the ones doing the keg stand.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Hot. Really, really hot.
Disney Parks
'Star Wars'
"Star Wars" is getting its own themed lands at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and Disneyland in Anaheim, California, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced at the D23 Fan Expo on Saturday.
The 14-acre attractions represent the largest single themed land expansion ever.
One adventure also promises to put guests "in the middle of a climactic battle between the First Order and the Resistance."
Since 1987, Disney parks have only had the Star Tours ride as their "Star Wars" themed attraction, and even that will be getting a facelift to reflect the new characters and worlds from December's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." The ride was previously updated in 2011.
More comprehensive brand integration into the parks has been expected since Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012. Disney will also be adding the interactive Star Wars Launch Bay and introducing a new seasonal event, Season of the Force, which will update Space Mountain to become Hyperspace Mountain where guests will participate in an X-Wing battle.
'Star Wars'
Drop Standardized Tests
U.S. Colleges
Hey, high schoolers, scared of bombing on the SATs and not getting into college? Don't worry, a growing number of U.S. schools are scrapping standardized test scores as part of admission.
Washington, D.C.'s George Washington University last month joined more than 850 U.S. colleges and universities that no longer require applicants to take the SAT or ACT, tests that have been a feature of American student life for decades.
Proponents of making the tests optional say the switch can help schools become more diverse and admit students who will thrive even though they may have lagged other applicants on scores.
The test-optional trend has accelerated in recent years, with more than two dozen schools dropping the requirement since the spring of 2014, according to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, which advocates for test-optional admissions. They include Wisconsin's Beloit College and Temple University in Philadelphia.
U.S. Colleges
Elephant Skin Graft
Rhino
A rhinoceros in South Africa that was mutilated by poachers for its horn is getting a chance to recover after receiving a skin graft from an elephant, a veterinarian told AFP Saturday.
The female rhino was attacked two weeks ago by poachers who removed one of its horns and also killed the rhino's baby.
The operation to treat the wound took an hour and a half and was funded by the NGO "Saving the Survivors" which rescues animals left mutilated by poachers.
"This is the first time we are using elephant skin to heal a wound on a rhinoceros," said Johan Marais, the veterinarian who performed the operation in Pretoria.
Marais said that the procedure was not intended to reconstruct the horn, but simply to cover the wound.
Rhino
Doping Pigs
China
Bigger pigs usually mean a bigger profit for hog farmers in the United States. But a drug used to help pigs gain muscle mass has made their product unsellable in the world's biggest market.
China outlaws the use of ractopamine, a beta agonist used by 80 percent of U.S. farmers. As a result, U.S. exports to China are down 40 percent in the first six months of 2015, Bloomberg Business reports, the lowest since 2010.
Using ractopamine can net farmers an additional $2 to $3 per pig, as it reduces the use of regular feed while creating leaner, heavier pigs. The FDA approved the drug's use in 1999, but Chinese and European officials say not enough testing has been done to warrant such a label. Aside from safety for human consumption, the drug can have adverse effects on the pigs that consume it, including trembling, broken limbs, inability to walk, and even death.
Although China banned ractopamine in 2011, it recently cracked down on the ban and delisted several U.S. pork plants-including half of Tyson Food's slaughterhouses-because of positive residue results. The majority of China's imports will come from Europe.
Industry leaders at the National Pork Board are advising farmers to consider whether using the drug is worth missing out on such a huge market. China is also an attractive trading partner because it purchases pig parts that Americans don't want, such as ears, feet, and organs.
China
Tests Force-Feeding Law
Hunger Strike
A nearly two-month hunger strike by a Palestinian detainee now in a coma may test a controversial new Israeli law on force-feeding, with doctors vowing to refuse to carry it out.
Mohammed Allan, 31, slipped into a coma on Friday after ingesting only water since June 18 in protest at his detention without charge by Israeli authorities.
After Allan fell into the coma, doctors began treating him with artificial breathing, fluids and vitamins to keep him alive, based on discussions with him before he lost consciousness.
If and when he regains consciousness -- and if he continues to refuse to eat -- Israel's government must decide whether it will invoke a law passed in July allowing the force-feeding of prisoners when their lives are endangered.
Doctors and rights activists strongly oppose the law, including those who say force-feeding amounts to torture and robs Palestinians of a legitimate form of protest.
Hunger Strike
Working For Free
Tennessee
Former inmates at a privately run Nashville jail say they worked without pay building bean-bag "cornhole" games, plaques shaped like footballs, birdhouses and dog beds so that officials could sell them through their personal business at a flea market.
Inmates can legally be required to work without pay, in some circumstances, but jail employees are not supposed to profit from their labor. But former inmates Larry Stephney and Charles Brew say that is what happened with Stand Firm Designs, run by two jail employees and one former employee, according to their business card.
Although the company website says Stand Firm Designs is "composed of retired contractors," Stephney and Brew said they produced some of the company's products while working without pay in the jail's woodshop under fear of retaliation.
Those products were sold at the Nashville Flea Market and through the website, they said. Plaques went for $10 to $20 and bean-bag toss games commonly called cornhole were $50, they said.
To prove the items being sold by Stand Firm Designs were made by inmates, Stephney and Brew concealed their names under pieces of wood nailed to the backs of items. They also wrote the number 412148, which refers to a section of Tennessee code that makes it illegal for jail officials to require an inmate to perform labor that results in the official's personal gain. The AP was shown some of the items with the concealed names and numbers.
Tennessee
Tests Tour Guides
Savannah
Before they can legally take paying customers sightseeing in Savannah, local tour guides must first pass a 100-question test on the city's history, key landmarks and architecture. The textbook for the exam is a 111-page manual that City Hall produced.
Savannah officials say the testing and licensing requirements for tour guides ensure they have a base level of knowledge about Georgia's oldest city. Tour guide Michelle Fleenor sees it as local government meddling with small business owners and unfairly singling out tourism workers who talk for a living.
Fleenor was among a small group of Savannah tour guides that sued the city in federal court last November, saying a 1978 ordinance requiring them to earn a city license violates their free speech rights. Both sides recently asked a U.S. District Court judge to decide the case from the bench, without a jury trial.
Rulings by other federal courts in similar cases have been divided. In Washington, D.C., an appellate court threw out licensing rules for tour guides. But a different appeals court upheld similar rules in New Orleans.
Savannah
Divers Raise Wreckage
CSS Georgia
After 150 years at the bottom of the Savannah River, the armored skeleton of the Confederate warship CSS Georgia is being raised to the surface one 5-ton chunk at a time.
Navy divers who began working in late June to recover cannons, unexploded shells and other artifacts from the riverbed finally started midweek on their last major task - retrieving an estimated 250,000 pounds of the Civil War ironclad's armored siding.
The CSS Georgia was scuttled by its own crew to prevent Gen. William T. Sherman from capturing the massive gunship when his Union troops took Savannah in December 1864. Still classified as a captured enemy vessel by the Navy, the remains of the Confederate ironclad are being salvaged as part of a $703 million deepening of the Savannah harbor for cargo ships.
The CSS Georgia was a crude example of the first armored warships designed during the Civil War to stand up to cannon and artillery fire. Its 1,200-ton frame was built using three layers of timber topped with 24-foot strips of railroad iron.
The Georgia proved so bulky its own engines were too weak to propel it against the Savannah River's currents. The Confederates anchored the ironclad off Old Fort Jackson as a floating gun battery. It was sunk without ever firing a shot in combat.
CSS Georgia
Weekend Box Office
'Straight Outta Compton'
The boys from Compton smashed opening weekend expectations, while the stylish "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." struggled to find its footing.
Universal's N.W.A. biopic earned an astonishing $56.1 million in its debut, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. PG-13-rated adaptation of the 1960s television series "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." debuted in third place, behind "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation," with a sluggish $13.5 million.
Fox's "Fantastic Four" plummeted to $8 million to take the fourth place spot, while "The Gift" took fifth with $6.5 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "Straight Outta Compton," $56.1 million ($15,000 international).
2. "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation," $17 million ($46.1 million international).
3. "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," $13.5 million.
4. "Fantastic Four," $8 million ($16.2 million international).
5. "The Gift," $6.5 million ($717,800 international).
6. "Ant-Man," $5.5 million ($5.6 million international).
7. "Vacation," $5.3 million ($1.9 million international).
8. "Minions," $5.2 million ($15 million international).
9. "Ricki and the Flash," $4.6 million.
10. "Trainwreck," $3.8 million ($6.2 million international).
'Straight Outta Compton'
In Memory
Julian Bond
U.S. civil rights leader and former head of the NAACP Julian Bond, who emerged as one of the pre-eminent student activists in America's turbulent 1960s, died on Saturday aged 75.
Bond died in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, the Southern Poverty Law Center said in a statement, without giving the cause of death. Bond was the civil rights organization's first president.
Bond was president of the SPLC from 1971 to 1979. From 1998 to 2010, he was chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
By the time Bond burst onto the national stage during the raucous summer of 1968, the then-28-year-old black activist already was on his way to joining the pantheon of American civil rights leaders.
This grandson of a slave arrived in Chicago for the Democratic Party's presidential nominating convention that year as a leader of a group of political insurgents from Georgia.
During the convention, Americans witnessed searing images of street rioting, police brutality and political anarchy in a country seething over the Vietnam War, racial discrimination and economic disparity.
They also saw the first black person nominated for U.S. vice president by a major political party. That person was Bond, who had to withdraw his name because he was seven years too young to hold the second-highest elected office.
While attending Morehouse College in 1960, Bond organized a group that staged student sit-ins with the aim of integrating movie theaters, lunch counters and other public facilities in Atlanta. Then came his work as one of the founders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, organized by black college students to stage sit-ins throughout the South.
In 1965, Bond was elected as a Democrat to the Georgia House of Representatives. But members of the legislature refused to seat him, citing his vocal opposition to the Vietnam War, a posture they called "repugnant" and "inconsistent" with the oath of office he was required to take.
Before Bond was allowed to join the Georgia House a year later, he had to twice win re-election to his own vacant seat, and the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that his rights had been violated. He ended up serving 20 years in the Georgia House and Senate.
Bond also taught at several colleges and universities and became a published author. In later years, he was a regular commentator for "The Today Show," and even hosted NBC's late- night comedy show, "Saturday Night Live."
He is survived by his second wife, Pamela Horowitz, and his five children, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Julian Bond
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