As an infectious disease epidemiologist and research fellow at Boston’s Children’s Hospital who debunks health misinformation on Instagram —where she has more than 380,000 followers — Jessica Malaty Rivera regularly receives tips from her followers about viral content to debunk. A few weeks ago, her followers started sending her a …
Read More »TikTok's School Shooting Hoax Shows How Misinformation on the App Is Out of Control
Every day seems like it brings a new moral panic or hoax on TikTok. Earlier this year, it was “National Rape Day,” a “challenge” that supposedly originated among misogynists on TikTok but was later found to be totally baseless; last year, it was the Wayfair sex trafficking conspiracy theory, which …
Read More »Former James Franco Acting Student Not Buying His Apologies
James Franco admitted to sleeping with some of the students he taught in acting classes and addressed the sexual misconduct allegations leveled against him almost four years ago for the first time in a new interview on The Jess Cagle Show. “There were people that were upset with me and …
Read More »Delta Force's Dirty Secret
F or Erin Scanlon, a junior Army officer in the artillery branch, Fort Bragg was a prime posting. The blond 25-year-old from suburban Phoenix had secured a lieutenant’s slot in the storied 82nd Airborne Division thanks to the good offices of one of her ROTC instructors at the University of …
Read More »Sugar Babies Are Taking to TikTok to Skewer Their Daddies
TikTok is not exactly the most sex-positive app. The platform tends to censor terms like “sex” and “stripping” (leading content creators to come up with clever workarounds in their captions, such as “seggs” and “skripping”), and sex workers often complain about being booted from the app for no good reason. …
Read More »'Terror and Confusion': On the Ground in Wuhan, China in the Early Days of Covid-19
With the threat of the Omicron variant bringing coronavirus uncertainty back into our daily lives, freelance journalist Brendan Borrell takes us back to the hazy, early days of the pandemic in this excerpt from his new book,The First Shots: The Epic Rivalries and Heroic Science Behind the Race to the …
Read More »'$100 Bills in Every Car': Ex-Epstein Employee Details Ghislaine Maxwell's Demands
As the first week of the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell continues, Juan Alessi, a former housekeeper and maintenance worker for Jeffrey Epstein took the stand to talk about his employment under Epstein and his working relationship with Maxwell, who is facing up to 80 years in prison for allegedly helping …
Read More »Iconic Broadway Composer and Lyricist Stephen Sondheim Dead at 91
Stephen Sondheim, the legendary Broadway songwriter, has died at his home in Connecticut at the age of 91, according to The New York Times. The prolific composer and lyricist was the creative force behind some 20 musicals starting in 1954 — including West Side Story (lyrics), A Funny Thing Happened …
Read More »'NFT' Beats Out 'Climate Anxiety' for Dictionary Publisher Collins' Word of the Year
“NFT,” the abbreviation for non-fungible tokens — the digital assets that exploded in popularity and price this year, but have also faced steeped criticism for their contributions to global warming — fittingly beat out “climate anxiety” for dictionary publisher Collins’ Word of the Year. In a blog post, Collins defined …
Read More »Kenosha on the Brink: A City Hopes for Peace, and Fears Violence, After Rittenhouse Verdict
Jesse Kline, who identified himself as “Maserati Mike,” arrived outside the Kenosha County Courthouse Wednesday morning donning a purple bowtie, military-grade body armor, and an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Inside the courthouse, Kyle Rittenhouse was on trial for using the same type of weapon to shoot three people, two fatally, during …
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