THE BIG STORY
The US has confirmed hundreds of deaths occurred at Native American boarding schools | The Carlisle Indian School student body around 1885, with the superintendent's house in the background Dept. of the Interior | The remains of more than 500 children were discovered at burial sites across the US as part of a wide-ranging investigation into the Indian boarding school system that systematically erased Indigenous culture from the early 1800s to around 1970. The real number of children whose bodies were dumped in the mass graves is expected to be much higher. The investigation explained that in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson told Congress that he wanted to create policies to separate Indian tribes from their land. Children were "coerced, induced, or compelled" to enter the schools, many without their parents' consent. According to the report, students housed at the schools endured "rampant physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; disease; malnourishment; overcrowding; and lack of health care." As part of their "education," administrators also made them do hours of "industrial work," including cooking and cleaning, farming fields, and working on railroad systems. Following this report, Congress is funneling $7 million more to support locating and sifting through sites, as well as efforts to preserve tribal languages. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland also announced a "Road to Healing" program wherein members of the initiative will travel across the US to "share their stories, help connect communities with trauma-informed support, and facilitate collection of a permanent oral history." | | | STAYING ON TOP OF THIS The war in Ukraine is a "child rights crisis," UNICEF says | - The first war crime trial in Russia's war against Ukraine starts Friday. A 21-year-old Russian commander is accused of fatally shooting an unarmed civilian in Chupakhivka, according to the Guardian.
- UNICEF says the war in Ukraine is a "child rights crisis." Education has been significantly impacted or at a total standstill, millions of children have fled their homes, and hundreds have been killed and injured in the war, the AP reports.
| | | Republicans are claiming without proof that baby formula used to feed infants at immigrant detention centers is siphoning away a product in short supply. But unlike families who can scour stores in search of formula amid the nationwide shortage, immigrants in detention centers can't leave and need the product to feed or supplement their babies. Elon Musk says Twitter deal is on temporary hold. Musk tweeted that the deal was on pause until he could verify that the number of spambots and fake accounts on Twitter were actually less than 5%.
Are you taking an SSRI or another antidepressant that's impacted your sex life? 1 in 7 Americans were taking antidepressants in 2020. If your medication has affected your libido, we want to hear about it.
| STRAIGHT PEOPLE HAVE ARRIVED Straight women are on Grindr now. Some people don't want them there. | Sam Twardy for BuzzFeed News | For about a year, Grindr users have been complaining about an influx of cis women seeking hookups with bisexual male partners. It's hard to know exactly how many women have joined Grindr (the company said it doesn't keep data on its users' gender and sexual orientation), but among the 27 Grindr users BuzzFeed News spoke to, there was at least the perception that women and femmes were joining in droves. One gay man from Iowa who has been using Grindr since 2011 told me via Reddit DM that "the uptick of cis women on the app happened in the past 3 years, absolutely exploding this year." Cis and trans women told BuzzFeed News they joined Grindr in search of an alternate path from the traditional heteronormativity and toxic masculinity of apps like Tinder and Bumble. But not everyone thinks women, particularly cis women, should be on Grindr. Is it the digital equivalent of drunken bachelorettes stumbling into gay bars, invading one of the few spaces available to queer men? "It's very important for straight cis people to be aware [that] they bring a lot of power and privilege into those spaces that oftentimes they're not aware of, and they can cause a lot of harm without intending to," Jennifer Vencill, a psychologist at the Mayo Clinic who specializes in working with LGBTQ+ clients, said. | SAGITTARIUS A* The first image of the black hole at the center of our galaxy has been unveiled | Sagittarius A* is surrounded by a heated plasma trillions of degrees in temperature, which make that donut-shaped halo you see in this image. EHT Collaboration / Via eso.org | An international astronomy team released a first image of the super-massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Called Sagittarius A*, the black hole weighs 4 million times more than the sun. It sits about 28,500 light years away (one light year is about 5.9 trillion miles) in the constellation Sagittarius. A group of over 300 astronomers worldwide, the EHTC combined observations from eight telescopes worldwide to capture the picture. Black holes are collapsed stars with gravity so strong that even light can't escape their gravitational pull. The smallest ones are thought to weigh only about four times as much as the sun. Super-massive ones are thought to lurk at the heart of most, if not all, galaxies, the result of stars and gas falling inward into them over time.
Luckily, Sagittarius A* is a relatively gentle black hole, and isn't irradiating the rest of the Milky Way with powerful jets seen in other galaxies. Nice.
| 😈 FRIDAY THE 13TH 😈 Longreads and chill | What happens when your family history becomes true crime fodder? On Friday, June 13, 1980, a 30-year-old mother of two named Betty Gore was discovered murdered in her home in Wylie, Texas. Betty, a former fifth-grade teacher, had been struck more than 25 times with a 3-foot ax in a brutal attack that an official at the time said left her nearly dismembered, with deep wounds across her face. Authorities arrested Candice "Candy" Montgomery, also a 30-year-old mother and friend of Betty's, but she was later acquitted of all charges after claiming self-defense. This month, Candy, a five-episode miniseries about the murder, starring Jessica Biel as Candy and Melanie Lynskey as Betty, premiered on Hulu. But Betty's family is still living with the aftermath of her death. They aren't quite sure why the tragedy is now being turned into multiple TV shows. For one family member who spoke with BuzzFeed News, it seems like they are being forced to relive their nightmare, without their consent, and without any say in how their family is portrayed. So why bring the crime back into the public eye now? The answer is rather simple. The show is for us: the viewers who feed the massive true crime industrial complex, demanding juicier and more shocking cases for our consumption. She was single. She wanted a baby. So she did it herself. In recent years, more women are becoming single mothers by choice, or "SMBCs," and forming small but rich and tight-knit online communities to help one another navigate the complexities of this path. Discussed in community groups on Reddit and TikTok, topics include how to find a sperm donor, what to say to your friends and family, whether to do insemination through a fertility clinic or the "DIY" method, and how to prepare your finances for a child. Sharing information and telling their stories is necessary, several SMBCs told BuzzFeed News, because there are few resources available for aspiring single parents. "Being able to share your life experiences with other women like you allows you to feel seen and understood," Nicole, a 38-year-old teacher who is expecting her first child in December 2022, said. "While my family and friends are supportive of my path to motherhood, I don't think anyone truly understands what it feels like to not have a partner, yet want to be a mother so badly and know that your time is limited. Fellow SMBCs share that feeling, and we can connect as a community in a very special way because of it." | | | As long as you're making yourself proud and trying your best, it doesn't matter what it looks like to other people, Alexa | | | BuzzFeed, Inc.
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