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“War Criminal Drinks ‘Poison’ In Court And Dies Just Hours Later, Croatian TV Says”

Moments after judges upheld Slobodan Praljaka's 20-year prison sentence for war crimes, he tilted back his head and consumed what he claimed was poison.

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(via (3) Autobiographical scene number 6882 - YouTube)

short by Ruben Östlund

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“Young Worker Clocked 159 Hours of Overtime in a Month. Then She Died.”

Miwa Sado, 31, a journalist for Japan’s state-run broadcaster, is the latest high-profile example of karoshi, or “death from overwork.”

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USGS Earthquake Hazards Program, responsible for monitoring, reporting, and researching earthquakes and earthquake hazards

Between the years 1973–2008, there was an average of 21 earthquakes of magnitude three and larger in the central and eastern United States. This rate has ballooned to over 600 M3+ earthquakes in 2014 and over 1000 in 2015. Through August 2016, over 500 M3+ earthquakes have occurred in 2016.

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“From Sex Object to Gritty Woman: The Evolution of Women in Stock Photos”

Generic images used in ads, billboards, magazines and blogs hold up a mirror to culture at a particular moment in time. But can they also subtly influence it?

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“Why Waiters Drink. And Why It Matters.”

The food service industry is a growing part of our economy, and it has a big substance abuse problem.

According to a 2015 report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the food services and accommodations industry is among the top fields for alcohol and illicit drug use, alongside construction and mining.

Naturally, food and beverage work is accompanied with an easy access to alcohol. But with the addition of late-night hours, long shifts without meal breaks and dark rooms full of people drinking, it is no surprise the environment often nurtures addiction.

According to the report, the industry currently has the highest rates of substance use disorder, at nearly 17 percent of its workers. That percentage is especially jarring when you consider that the restaurant industry is the second-largest private-sector employer. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs in food service will soon outnumber those in manufacturing.

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“The Anti-Refugee Ship Run By Far-Right YouTubers Got Into Trouble And Was Helped By A Refugee Rescue Boat”

"To help those who are in distress is the duty of everyone who is at sea — no matter their origins, skin color, religion, or views," the chairman of the rescue group said.

The ship that was bought by a group of far-right YouTubers to stop refugees getting to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea ran into trouble off the coast of Libya and was offered help by a refugee rescue boat, the group behind the rescue boat said.

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“How Cults Use YouTube for Recruitment”

You can now unknowingly be recruited into a cult without leaving your home.

On July 15, Steven Mineo was found dead from a single gunshot.

According to his girlfriend, Barbara Rogers, Mineo was seated on the ground cross-legged in his Pennsylvania apartment when she pulled the trigger of the Glock. Rogers also told police that her boyfriend wanted to die.

For years, the two allegedly belonged to a cult started by Sherry Shriner, an online conspiracy theorist. Shriner works through the internet with a website, a podcast, and a YouTube channel. She preaches that a group called the New World Order—made up of reptilians and aliens—is plotting to take over the world.

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We regard Ivanka Trump the way we do half-wit Saudi princes. It's in our national interest to flatter them.

Unnamed Indian diplomat

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“UK family found guilty of enslaving homeless and disabled people”

Lincolnshire gang forced at least 18 victims to work for little or no pay and live in squalor for up to 26 years

Eleven members of a Lincolnshire family have been convicted of a series of modern slavery offences after forcing at least 18 victims – including homeless people and some with learning disabilities – to work for little or no pay and live in squalid conditions, it can be reported.

The members of the Rooney family, who were based on Traveller sites in Lincoln, targeted vulnerable people, including some with alcohol or drug addiction, and deliberately looked for potential captives on the streets, Nottingham crown court heard.

The impact of the forced labour on the mental and physical health of the victims had been severe, prosecutors said, with some being malnourished, subjected to beatings and threatened. One of the victims was found to have been working for the family for 26 years.

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“India on Film: 1899-1947”

An extraordinary collection of films capturing India before independence.

INDIA ON FILM: 1899-1947 An extraordinary collection of films capturing India before independence.

Newly digitized, from the BFI archives.

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(via Why Was There a Giant Inflatable Chicken Near the White House? - The New York Times)

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“What a Fraternity Hazing Death Revealed About the Painful Search for an Asian-American Identity”

When Michael Deng, a college freshman, joined an Asian-American fraternity, he was looking for a sense of belonging and identity. Two months later he was dead.

Asians are the loneliest Americans. The collective political consciousness of the ’80s has been replaced by the quiet, unaddressed isolation that comes with knowing that you can be born in this country, excel in its schools and find a comfortable place in its economy and still feel no stake in the national conversation. The current vision of solidarity among Asian-­Americans is cartoonish and blurry and relegated to conversations at family picnics, in drunken exchanges over food that reminds everyone at the table of how their mom used to make it. Everything else is the confusion of never knowing what side to choose because choosing our own side has so rarely been an option. Asian pride is a laughable concept to most Americans. Racist incidents pass without prompting any real outcry, and claims of racism are quickly dismissed. A common past can be accessed only through dusty, dug-up things: the murder of Vincent Chin, Korematsu v. United States, the Bataan Death March and the illusion that we are going through all these things together. The Asian-­American fraternity is not much more than a clumsy step toward finding an identity in a country where there are no more reference points for how we should act, how we should think about ourselves. But in its honest confrontation with being Asian and its refusal to fall into familiar silence, it can also be seen as a statement of self-­worth. These young men, in their doomed way, were trying to amend the American dream that had brought their parents to this country with one caveat:

I will succeed, they say. But not without my brothers!

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“Ode to the Buttered Roll, That New York Lifeline”

The utterly simple kaiser roll, spread with butter, is an unsung hero of the city’s mornings.

“It’s one of the most popular things I sell, absolutely,” said Peter Cherevas, who has had a coffee cart stationed at 86th Street and Broadway for the past 27 years. Sales, he said, are “very, very consistent — more than bagels.”

“Bagels have slacked off; buttered rolls have not,” he continued. “Small coffee, milk one sugar, you’re good.”

Mr. Cherevas typically sells four dozen buttered rolls a day, to a diverse group of customers: young and old, suits and hard hats. “Everyone!” he said. “They’re all New Yorkers, though, not tourists.”

Part of the appeal is that they’re hard to screw up. Even if the roll is less than fresh, or prepared with margarine, or the filling is bizarrely distributed, the final product is somehow, magically, edible.

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“Marijuana company buys entire US town to create ‘cannabis-friendly municipality’”

A company which makes cannabis products has bought an entire town in California and plans to turn it into a "destination" for marijuana.

"We are excited to lead the charge for a true green rush," American Green's president David Gwyther said in a statement to Time.

"The cannabis revolution that's going on here in the US has the power to completely revitalise communities in the same way gold did during the 19th Century."

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(@3:29, audio of Donald Trump calling reporters under a fake name to big himself up)