Britney Spears news

• Minnesota officials: “No reason to believe” Prince committed suicide and no signs of trauma

  22-04-2016 23:12 via salon.com
  
  One day after Prince's death shocked music fans around the world, additional details surrounding the pop superstar's demise were released Friday afternoon. Carver County Sheriff Jim Olson announced that the singer's body showed "no obvious signs of trauma" and that there is "no reason to believe at this point" that Prince committed suicide. Officials found that Prince was alone at the time of his death, according to The Hollywood Reporter.An autopsy was performed on
  
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• Bernie’s donation windfall: Sanders’ campaign has raised $182 million, eclipsing Hillary Clinton’s total

  22-04-2016 22:31 via salon.com
  
  After trailing DNC establishment darling Hillary Clinton in fundraising for almost a year, Bernie Sanders has now surpassed his Democratic rival in the metric, according to a CNN report.Federal Election Commission filings indicate Sanders' campaign has out-raised Clinton's "by at least 50%" every month this year -- and in so doing, steadily reeled in Hillary's more than $30 million head start.The Democratic candidates were effectively tied at $182 million, with Sanders having a re
  
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• Stop calling Kelly Ripa a “diva”: The urge to demean women for exercising power is still going strong

  22-04-2016 21:26 via salon.com
  
  Kelly Ripa deserves a hell of a lot better than this. The talk show host, actress, producer and parent has a long-running television show with her name on it and a string of successful endorsement deals. Yet this week, following the announcement that her Live With Kelly and Michael" cohost Michael Strahan was departing the show for a full-time gig with "Good Morning America," it appeared that America's sweetheart — who is also one of the most powerful people in contemporary media — w
  
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• The world mourns Prince: Everything you need to know about his life, death and international tributes

  22-04-2016 20:51 via salon.com
  
  The music industry and fans across the world continue to mourn the death of Prince, who was found dead Thursday in Minneapolis at 57.An autopsy was performed Friday, though speculation began almost immediately following Prince's passing. TMZ has been most active in determining the cause of Prince's death.Prince had to postpone by a week two back-to-back concerts at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta after contracting the flu. The concerts, held on April 14, would be his last. Paste Magazi
  
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• “Defining political issue of our time”: NYU grad student union overwhelmingly votes to boycott Israel over violations of Palestinian human rights

  22-04-2016 20:26 via salon.com
  
  Graduate students at New York University have overwhelmingly voted to boycott Israel in protest of its violation of Palestinian human rights.Exactly two-thirds of voting members of the graduate student union the Graduate Student Organizing Committee, or GSOC-UAW 2110, supported a referendum on Friday that calls for New York University and United Auto Workers International to withdraw their investments from Israeli state institutions and international corporations complicit in violations of Pales
  
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• The first clue into what caused Prince’s death? The music icon reportedly overdosed on Percocet a week before he was found dead

  22-04-2016 20:21 via salon.com
  
  One day after news of Prince's death shocked the world, fans are seeking answers to how and why the pop icon died. An official explanation won't be released until the results of an autopsy are complete, which could take weeks, but a new report offers what could be the first hint into what caused Prince's death.According to TMZ, Prince overdosed on Percocet after a concert in Atlanta last week, prompting EMTs to inject the singer with a "save shot." The outlet reports that Prince's plan
  
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• Donald Trump’s “magic” thinking: His campaign’s insane general election optimism about states they can’t possibly win

  22-04-2016 19:38 via salon.com
  
  If there’s one quality the Donald Trump presidential campaign does not lack, its confidence. In the days since Trump barreled through the New York primary, his team has been making a deliberate show of strength intended to discourage his rivals and win over skeptical Republicans. And, in characteristic Trump fashion, their pitches have an eye-catching, over-the-top quality intended to distract from the obvious lack of substance behind the product.As I wrote earlier this week, Trump’s
  
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• Conservatives gang up on a child: Anti-trans bullying of 5-year-old in Minnesota shows adults, not kids, are the problem

  22-04-2016 19:21 via salon.com
  
  It's so predictable that it verges on comical: Whenever a feminist tries to argue that most gender norms we have are learned and not inborn, many (probably most) parents will protest. No way, they'll argue. They didn't try to impose gender norms on their kids and yet somehow Little Johnny was just drawn, as if by instinct, to the toy truck while Little Jane was clutching baby dolls before she even knew what babies were. How dare feminists suggest that parents themselves put kids in tightly
  
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• America’s most evil governor strikes again: Maine’s Paul LePage vetos lifesaving Heroin overdose antidote bill

  22-04-2016 19:16 via salon.com
  
  The United Nations held its first general assembly special session on drugs since 1998 this week at the behest of drug war ravaged nations like Mexico and Columbia who called for a global rethinking on the punitive prohibition of drugs, citing the destructive impact of the war on drugs. For three days in New York City this week, international leaders negotiated an agenda to push world policy towards harm reduction in regards to drug use rather than zero tolerance criminalization.A few hundred mi
  
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• Death threats from Trump supporters: They’re going after Republican delegates — and Trump’s rhetoric is clearly to blame

  22-04-2016 18:48 via salon.com
  
  Donald Trump is a uniquely dangerous presidential candidate. Although we learned this week that he's been playing a “part” all this time, his incendiary rhetoric has been all-too-real.Until very recently, the average Trump speech has been a veritable grab-bag of xenophobic slurs and nationalist platitudes. Whether Trump means anything he says is irrelevant. What's true in any case is that the angry hordes at his rallies believe him. If you whip people into a frenzy for long enough, a
  
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• Patton Oswalt: If you’re a Bernie supporter who’s vowed to never vote for Hillary, “you’re a f*cking child”

  22-04-2016 18:33 via salon.com
  
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• This 30-year-old refugee just wanted to be a high school basketball star, but was instead arrested for lying about his age

  22-04-2016 18:31 via salon.com
  
  For the past six months, Jonathan Nicola has claimed to be 17 years old. He was arrested in violation of Canada's Refugee Protection Act because he is actually 30 years old, not 17. He is a South Sudanese refugee and center star of the Catholic Central Comets in Windsor, Ontario. He's been living with coach Pete Cusuamano who said in January that Nicola could play in the NBA. Nicola is in custody and awaiting further immigration hearings.Watch our video for more.For the past six months, Jonathan
  
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• Prince was the weirdo we needed: On race, masculinity & the indelible legacy of a musical icon

  22-04-2016 18:22 via salon.com
  
  After David Bowie died earlier this year, I listened to his final album, “Black Star.” And I cried.In the album, Bowie took us on a journey through the fever dreams and delusions caused by chemotherapy. One of my best friends died of brain cancer in our early '20s, and Bowie helped me to understand my friend’s mental confusion, and the often prophetically beautiful insights about the world that he shared with me from his deathbed.The passing of Prince is dif
  
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• Ann Coulter needs to stop: She and the rest of the clueless conservatives need to quit moaning about replacing Jackson with Tubman on $20 bill

  22-04-2016 17:59 via salon.com
  
  While other conservative talkers got their reflexive right-wing signals crossed when the Treasury Department announced that it was celebrating the centennial anniversary of women's suffrage by replacing the slave-owning former president with a woman slave turned abolitionist, Ann Coulter had sense enough to not attack Harriet Tubman, but rather, offered her own memorial of Andrew Jackson.Some of the crazier depths of right-wing Twitter got carried away when Tubman was announced as the new face o
  
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• Classless Justin Bieber attacks Prince on Instagram hours after the iconic musician’s death

  22-04-2016 17:52 via salon.com
  
  Shortly after news that iconic performer Prince had passed away, the infinitely lesser talent that is Justin Bieber posted on Instagram that Prince didn't deserve to be called "the last greatest living performer," as singer-songwriter Andrew Watt had dubbed him.Watt had posted a heartfelt remembrance of his relation to Prince's persona and music, saying he was "devastated" and calling the icon "the last greatest living performer.""His connection to all his instruments yielded a sexual transcendi
  
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• Prince’s feud with Michael Jackson: The intense rivalry leading up to “a kind of a superstar way of saying, ‘f**k you’”

  22-04-2016 17:49 via salon.com
  
  A day later, Prince’s death remains just as difficult to figure out: For anyone who grew up with his songs and saw him as a source of vitality, lust, genius and hours of head-spinning music, his passing is just about irreconcilable. For a musician who was intensely private, he was also someone we thought we knew, and he seemed like he would keep touring and making music forever.To try to make sense of a deeply complicated artist, Salon spoke to the critic Touré, who’s written
  
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• This badass lawmaker wants to regulate Viagra the way men regulate birth control

  22-04-2016 17:34 via salon.com
  
  After Representative Mia McLeod of South Carolina was assigned to a committee to investigate Planned Parenthood, she decided she'd had enough of senseless regulation of women's reproductive rights.McLeod first filed a bill to limit men's access to Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs in December, in response to the many anti-abortion bills passed in the US. She didn't expect the bill to pass, but it did pass last Wednesday.The bill will require men seeking Viagra to present a statement of
  
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• Bigots boycott Target over bathrooms: Inclusive public restrooms aren’t “a possible gateway for predators”

  22-04-2016 16:59 via salon.com
  
  When it comes to basic rights and dignity, if being on the wrong side of history is your jam, by all means, do your thing. But just forgive us if the rest of us find you totally, laughably irrelevant. Good luck with that Target boycott, though!Earlier this week, Target — which has of late been making long overdue strides toward making its toy and housewares aisles less rigidly gender-oriented — made another statement in its continuing "stand for inclusivity" and affirmed, "We welcome
  
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• We now have proof Trump’s a fraud: Confirming what we thought, new campaign manager admits Trump’s been playing a “part” the whole time

  22-04-2016 16:54 via salon.com
  
  “Fixing personality negatives is a lot easier than fixing character negatives. You can't change somebody's character, but you can change the way a person presents himself.” - Paul ManafortThe above quote is from Donald Trump's new campaign manager. Along with Rick Wiley, Manafort was hired recently to “professionalize” Trump's operation. What he says here is both revealing and profoundly wrong. How a person presents himself, or more to the point, how far a person is willi
  
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• ‘The $20 bill goes ghetto”: Racist responses to Harriet Tubman on the $20 are out of control

  22-04-2016 16:19 via salon.com
  
  Abolitionist Harriet Tubman is set to replace former President Andrew Jackson on the face of the $20 bill and people are not happy about it. From Raven Simone to Ben Carson, watch our video for more details. Continue Reading...
  
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• Donald Trump is slightly less evil: Trump and Cruz test how far right Republicans have become on LGBT and women’s rights

  22-04-2016 16:19 via salon.com
  
  Donald Trump, if reports are correct, appears to be a traditional enough of a politician to grasp the concept of pivoting to the general, claiming he's going to become more presidential and quietly reassuring potential backers that the loud-mouthed bore act is just an act. There's good reason to be skeptical, but, in his ham-fisted way, he was clearly trying to appear more mainstream during the "Today" town hall on Thursday, portraying himself as open to raising taxes on the rich and claimi
  
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• Transgender teen booted from Ted Cruz rally as campaign of transphobia ramps up

  22-04-2016 16:09 via salon.com
  
  "As a member of the LGBT community, and considering that Ted Cruz is extremely homophobic and transphobic, I came here to represent the LGBT youth that are hurt by his propaganda and rhetoric," 16-year-old Maryland teen James Van Kuilenburg told the Fredrick News-Post on Thursday. Kuilenburg, a transgender boy, said he and his mother were kicked out of the Republican presidential candidate's campaign event in their town simply because James is transgender.Cruz, the most conservative co
  
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• Chaos at Fox News: Roger Ailes’ secret behind-the-scenes scheme puts network’s leadership in doubt

  22-04-2016 16:00 via salon.com
  
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• Joe Scarborough declares “flexible” Donald Trump to be like Prince: They’re both “shape-shifters”

  22-04-2016 15:33 via salon.com
  
  On MSNBC's Morning Joe Friday, co-host Joe Scarborough made a desperate bid to create relevance where none exists by declaring that current Republican front-runner Donald Trump is "like Prince," who died suddenly yesterday at the age of 57.Scarborough was responding to former George W. Bush communications chief Nicolle Wallace, who said that unlike Hillary Clinton, Trump is "so nimble" when it comes to how he can attack Democrats on social issues.
  "I'll give you that last point," Scarborough sai
  
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• Bernie Sanders is right: Even U.S. State Department says Israel used disproportionate violence in Gaza

  22-04-2016 15:12 via salon.com
  
  Bernie Sanders has faced bitter attacks in recent weeks for criticizing Israel.On multiple occasions, the presidential candidate has condemned the Israeli military's summer 2014 attack on the densely populated Gaza Strip, which he described as disproportional and indiscriminate. Critics, including opponent Hillary Clinton, have in turn blasted Sanders for his remarks.But the United Nations, leading human rights organizations and even a new report by the U.S. State Department confirm that what Sa
  
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• “I was clearly in the wrong party”: Howard Dean compares his campaign-killing scream with Trump’s racism on

  22-04-2016 15:07 via salon.com
  
  "Daily Show" host Trevor Noah last night sat down with former-DNC chairman and -governor of Vermont, Howard Dean.Being a high-ranking politician from Vermont, Dean knows Bernie Sanders pretty well. Asked what he thinks is going through Sanders' head right now, Dean said, "It's very tough for him right now.""I've been through this," he continued. "The hardest thing about losing is not your own loss; it's the people who believed in you's loss."Dean is a superdelegate at a time when a lot of Sander
  
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• WATCH: Charles Krauthammer unloads on Fox News colleagues for believing NC transgender bathroom law is a real issue

  22-04-2016 14:54 via salon.com
  
  The majority of commentators on Fox News are outraged at ESPN's firing of former pitcher Curt Schilling for insensitive remarks he made on social media about transgender individuals -- but at least one person employed by the network knows the North Carolina anti-LGBTQ law is a "solution in search of an issue."
  That person was not Todd Starnes, who was appearing on Varney & Company complaining that while Schilling's First Amendment rights weren't being violated, "what Schilling wrote isn't co
  
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• WATCH: Fox News sends Jesse Watters into Harlem to demand black people explain themselves

  22-04-2016 14:07 via salon.com
  
  On The O'Reilly Factor Thursday evening, host Bill O'Reilly sent roving "reporter" Jesse Watters into Harlem to demand African-Americans explain why their community overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton in the recent New York primary.The responses centered less on her position on racial issues, however. "I hope Hillary wins," one enthusiastic supporter said, "we need a woman in the White House.""I like her as a person," another said, "and it's a step for the women. We've never had a woman pre
  
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• John Kasich is actually kinda nuts: The GOP primary’s “reasonable moderate” can’t admit the contradictions of his campaign

  22-04-2016 14:00 via salon.com
  
  Speaking to the Washington Post editorial board earlier this week, John Kasich made his pitch for the presidency, saying he is a rebel and an anti-establishment maverick who also has a resume a mile long from having been a Republican official for most of the last 30 years. And it's kind of true. Unfortunately for him, his brand of rebel is the type that was popular 25 years ago, the type who worked with Democrats to pass budget deals or campaign finance reform. It's the type&
  
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• “All of us, of course, remember ‘Purple Haze’”: Wolf Blitzer’s excruciating Prince screwup is a valuable lesson for pundits & politicians

  22-04-2016 13:59 via salon.com
  
  Every time someone prominent or amazing dies these days, two things make the death even worse than it already was. The first is the age-old truth that so many horrible things persist, and even thrive, after our heroes and superstars have departed. The second, more modern headache is that social media and cable news are immediately flooded with ham-fisted attempts to deal with the death by people who have no business getting anywhere near it.Both of these things could be found in the ho
  
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• Leaving immigration to Trump: Paul Ryan and the House GOP’s policy agenda has a conspicuous, politicallly risky omission

  22-04-2016 13:58 via salon.com
  
  The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has a well-earned reputation as a thoroughly dysfunctional and largely useless governing body. In the six years since the GOP has taken control, activity in the House has been defined largely by titanic struggles within the party to accomplish the bare minimum of its governing responsibilities, the paralysis broken only by the need to avert a series of self-imposed crises. There’s been no real policy agenda, largely because the party in po
  
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• Russell Simmons on Prince: “I came to love him”

  22-04-2016 13:39 via salon.com
  
  Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons joined "Nightly Show" host Larry Wilmore's panel to discuss the untimely passing of music legend Prince."I thought he was one of the sweetest people that I've ever met," Simmons said. "Every time I met him, he was really nice to me. He was very sweet to all the fans that approached him."Simmons explained that he didn't have a personal relationship with Prince -- in fact, Def Jam's rebellious oeuvre was fundamentally at odds with the pop stars of the '80s -- so
  
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• David Brooks: The future of Cuba is exceeding bleak — but unlike Americans, at least Cubans still read poetry

  22-04-2016 13:39 via salon.com
  
  David Brooks -- who is currently traveling in Cuba with a number of artists as part of President Obama's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities -- took time out from penning condescending columns about liberals' shortcomings to celebrate the work of 19th Century Cuban poet José Martí -- sort of."It’s hard to be too optimistic about Cuba’s short-term future," he wrote. "The leaders are trying to square the mother of all circles -- to have a rich society but without ric
  
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• Stephen Colbert to RNC chief: “I really need to know that you’re not doing body shots off an unemployed Santa”

  22-04-2016 13:38 via salon.com
  
  "Late Show" host Stephen Colbert last night weighed in on Reince Priebus' bizarre CNN interview in which he said he's "not pouring Bailey's in my cereal.""I'm not pouring Baileys on my cereal is a very specific reference for something you are not doing, sir," Colbert told Preibus. "I really need to know that you're not doing Rumple Minze body shots off an unemployed mall Santa."He then busted out a box of Lucky Charms and a bottle of Baileys -- "or as I like to call it," he said, "an Irish
  
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• Paul Krugman: Hamilton needed to remain on the $10 on his own merits, not just because Jackson was a racist

  22-04-2016 13:18 via salon.com
  
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• Sexy MFers, unite: The feminist power of Prince’s sex-positive songs

  22-04-2016 12:00 via salon.com
  
  Upon hearing about Prince's sudden death at age 57 on Thursday, most everyone is latching onto a memory of the first time you realized that he wasn't your everyday pop star. For me: It must have been right before or in the early months of my freshman year of high school when the video for "Gett Off," off Prince's 13th studio album "Diamonds and Pearls", was released. While the timing is vague, my memories of watching it on MTV with my girl friends are etched into stone. We were utterly transfixe
  
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• Bernie’s most valuable lesson: The Democratic Party does not represent the values of progressive Americans

  22-04-2016 11:59 via salon.com
  
  Over the past year, the insurgent political campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders has revealed quite a bit about the reasoning of partisan Democrats, and thus separated the progressives from the liberals. As a populist candidate who has refused support from Super PACs and big monied interests, Sanders has shined a light on the unpleasant reality that the Democratic party — and its likely presidential nominee — is almost as reliant on funding from
  
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• Ted Cruz’s paranoid adviser: By aligning with an Islamophobe, Cruz is embracing ludicrous right-wing conspiracy theories

  22-04-2016 11:58 via salon.com
  
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• Stop clinging to the Founding Fathers: The Andrew Jackson/Hamilton/Tubman debate is really about honest history

  22-04-2016 11:57 via salon.com
  
  The economy may be looking up, but our money is a mess. Let’s take these things one at a time: Keeping the “son-of-a-whore” Alexander Hamilton on the ten-dollar bill makes sense, because as the first secretary of the Treasury he was proactive and innovative––though not at all the progressive or “man of the people” that the prize-winning musical would have us believe.  Putting women’s rights figures on the back of Hamilton’s ten is a mixe
  
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• America’s reputation around the world is tainted: Panicked foreign leaders are publicly worrying about Donald Trump

  22-04-2016 11:57 via salon.com
  
  If there was any doubt that the awfulness of Donald Trump's candidacy transcended conventional partisan differences, the international response to his campaign has removed it.Last month, Secretary of State John Kerry appeared on CBS's “Face the Nation” and called Trump and the broader Republican campaign an “embarrassment” that is creating doubts about America's reliability abroad. “Everywhere I go, every leader I meet,” Kerry said, “they ask about what
  
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• Once a thug, always a thug: Donald Trump will never (ever) be presidential

  22-04-2016 10:30 via salon.com
  
  If you noticed that the last two Sunday mornings were slightly less chaotic on the talk show circuit, that’s because Donald Trump broke with his longstanding TV tradition and did not appear. (He didn’t even call in.) For five months running, Trump had been a fixture on the Sunday shows (he’s made 70 appearances since the beginning of 2015), spouting off endlessly and often creating controversy as producers watched their Trump-fueled ratings climb.It’s been a win-win for T
  
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• Seymour Hersh spills the secrets of Bin Laden’s execution: “He was a prisoner of war. It was a hit”

  22-04-2016 10:15 via salon.com
  
  Seymour Hersh is an American investigative journalist who is the recipient of many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for his article exposing the My Lai massacre by the U.S. military in Vietnam. More recently, he exposed the U.S. government’s abuse of detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison facility.Hersh's new book, The Killing of Osama Bin Laden, is a corrective to the official account of the war on terror. Drawing from accounts of a number of high-level military officials, Hersh challenge
  
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• A Clinton/Warren ticket? VP shortlist fuels rampant speculation

  22-04-2016 10:00 via salon.com
  
  A top official in the Hillary Clinton campaign has said that the shortlist of potential running mates for Clinton, should she secure the nomination, includes a woman, according to the Boston Globe. Naturally, this has fueled speculation about a possible Hillary Cinton/Elizabeth Warren ticket.Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta told the Globe that Clinton wants, “the best person to make the case to the American people. We’ll start with a broad list and then begin to narr
  
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• Prince, pop, race and America: How a difficult, pansexual genius remade our culture

  22-04-2016 01:00 via salon.com
  
  I once had a girlfriend, a thousand years ago across the continent, who got her dark curly hair cut into an off-center wedge that hung across the right half of her face. She liked to wear purple paisley-pattern dresses, and cut out her own paisley stencil to use in repainting her red 1969 Vespa scooter. She used to talk dreamily about the affair she’d have with Prince someday, which would not jeopardize our relationship — I mean, surely I would understand — and which for some r
  
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• “Male contraceptive options haven’t changed since Elvis was thin”: These revolutionary alternatives to condoms are dragging male birth control into the 21st century

  22-04-2016 01:00 via salon.com
  
  Most people think of contraception as an issue of women’s health and rights. But for millennia, men too have wanted choices—the means to decide whether, when and with whom they father a child.Coitus interruptus or the withdrawal method, was practiced as early as 2,500 years ago, and from the 18th century till modern times has been one of the most common forms of contraception. Condoms, made first of linen or intestine, date to at least the 16th century. But today coitus in
  
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• Amy Schumer’s missing edge: Has she outgrown her own show already?

  22-04-2016 00:59 via salon.com
  
  The ad campaign for season four of Comedy Central’s “Inside Amy Schumer” is, as is characteristic for Schumer, uncomfortably on point. In a few different spots, a doctor diagnoses the comedian with the medical condition of “overexposure,” with the resultant connotations of sunburn, radiation poisoning, or, you know, public nudity. For Schumer, it’s both her network and herself acknowledging that for the last several months, she has been everywhere at once. In
  
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• A Prince for every occasion: He created his own borderless genre—and always sounded exactly like himself

  22-04-2016 00:58 via salon.com
  
  Last week, when TMZ reported that Prince's plane made an emergency landing so he could be rushed to the hospital, we all collectively held our breath. 2016 has been an uncommonly bad year for musician deaths, and the loss of David Bowie, Glenn Frey and countless other artists still feels like a raw nerve, even months later. Losing Prince—Prince!—would be not only inconceivable, but devastating. After word broke that he apparently just had a touch of the flu, and was discharged severa
  
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