These are the top maybe-not headlines from the past 36-hours presented by The Conversation Project from raw engagement data from our social media to the headlines posted over the past day.
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The 8 topics that our followers ranked as the most conversational are:
JESSYE NORMAN, INTERNATIONAL OPERA STAR, DEAD AT 74
A statement released to The Associated Press on Monday said Norman died at 7:54 a.m. EDT from septic shock and multi-organ failure secondary to complications of a spinal cord injury she suffered in 2015. She died at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital in New York, and was surrounded by loved ones. Norman was a trailblazing performer, and one of the rare black singers to attain worldwide stardom in the opera world, performing at such revered houses like La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera, and singing title roles in works like “Carmen,” ″Aida” and more. She sang the works of Wagner, but was not limited to opera or classical music, performing songs by Duke Ellington and others as well.
[SOURCE: apnews.com]
AMAZON GO COMING TO AIRPORTS, MOVIE THEATERS
The effort would help Amazon grow its retail presence so the company can lower its reliance on online shopping, but at a faster pace and at lower cost than building its own stores. Simultaneously it might help Amazon form bonds with companies that would ordinarily consider Amazon the competition. That type of collaboration could lead to further growth of Amazon’s cloud business. Amazon already has 16 branded Go stores where customers scan their phones, grab products off of shelves and then walk out and receive a receipt for whatever they took with them. Amazon is eager to place the underlying components for that experience inside other companies’ stories to speed up transactions, three people told CNBC.
[SOURCE: cnbc.com]
AMBER GUYGER FOUND GUILTY OF MURDER AT TRIAL IN FATAL SHOOTING OF NEIGHBOR BOTHAM JEAN
Former Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger, who has been out on a $300,000 bond, faces a maximum of life in prison. She was not immediately taken into custody and the sentencing phase in her trial began Tuesday afternoon with opening statements from Jean’s mother. A gasp could be heard in the packed courtroom when state District Judge Tammy Kemp read the jury’s decision. Jean’s family later walked out crying and embracing, many wearing red — the victim’s favorite color. The jury was tasked with deciding whether Guyger, 31, acted reasonably when she used deadly force and if the prosecution had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that she had intentionally killed Jean. A lesser charge of manslaughter, which involves reckless conduct, was also on the table.
[SOURCE: nbcnews.com]
RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION BILL MAY BREACH CONSTITUTION BY ALLOWING DOCTORS TO REFUSE TREATMENT
Key provisions of the religious discrimination bill may be unconstitutional because they allow medical practitioners to refuse treatment, and privilege statements of religious belief, an academic has warned. Luke Beck, a constitutional and religious freedom expert at Monash University, warned the Coalition’s exposure draft bill may be incompatible with international law and therefore not supported by the external affairs power in the constitution. The submission echoes concerns from the Australian Human Rights Commission and Public Interest Advocacy Centre that the bill will licence discriminatory statements about race, sexual orientation and disability on the grounds of religion, and that it privileges religion over other rights. The bill has been criticised for overriding state and federal discrimination law, including section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which prohibits speech that offends, insults or humiliates people based on race.
[SOURCE: THEGUARDIAN.COM]
TENNESSEE TEEN DIES BY SUICIDE AFTER BEING OUTED ONLINE
Channing Smith, 16, a high school student in Coffee County, Tennessee, died by suicide between Sept. 22 and Sept. 23. Joshua Smith, Channing’s half-brother, said he discovered the cyberbullying after he was initially unable to identify a motive for Channing’s death. “I just went out on a limb and started cold messaging kids that were apparently his friends,” Joshua Smith told TODAY.com. “Within just a couple of hours, I was able just from talking to kids to put together a storyline.” Joshua Smith said he found out that Channing had been sending sexually explicit texts to a boy from school. When a girl Channing had previously dated came across these messages, she shared screen shots on Snapchat and Instagram and “pretty much outs my brother for being gay,” he said. “I think these kids need to be held accountable at some level,” he said.
[SOURCE: nbcnews.com]
R. KELLY COMPLAINS HE CAN ONLY GET JAIL VISITS FROM ONE OF TWO ‘LADY FRIENDS’ AT A TIME
In new court papers, the embattled R&B singer’s lawyer complains of “stifling” conditions in Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center — where Kelly is only allowed to put one of his two “lady friends” on his visitor’s list at a time. Before Kelly was locked up on sex crimes charges in July, he lived with his two paramours — Azriel Clary, 21, and Joycelyn Savage, 23 — in a one-bedroom condo in the Windy City. Clary and Savage’s parents have repeatedly claimed that Kelly, 52, brainwashed the pair — but the duo have been openly supportive of the singer, accusing their parents of casting them as sex slaves in a ploy to make money. Meanwhile, Greenberg also complained that the “I Believe I Can Fly” artist, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, is restricted to 300 minutes of phone time each month. Kelly — who faces federal and state charges in Brooklyn, Chicago and Minneapolis — has spent much of his time behind bars in solitary confinement and was recently moved to general population. But Greenberg said that, despite the move, conditions “remain stifling.”
[SOURCE: pagesix.com]
‘STRANGER THINGS’ RENEWED FOR SEASON 4 AS CREATORS INK NINE-FIGURE NETFLIX DEAL
Netflix’s time in the Upside Down will continue. The streaming giant has handed out a fourth-season renewal to the breakout hit Stranger Things and signed its creators, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, to a multiyear film and TV overall deal that sources say is worth nine figures. The news arrives nearly three months after the third season of the 1980s-set sci-fi drama returned after more than a year off the proverbial air. A return date for season four has not been determined. Stranger Things is considered Netflix’s most popular scripted original series. The streamer, which typically does not release viewership data, announced July 8 that some 40.7 million household accounts had watched part of season three since its July 4 launch — “more than any other film or series” in its first four days. It also noted that 18.2 million households had already finished all of season three. Measurement company Nielsen in December 2017 said that more than 15 million people watched the season two premiere within three days of its launch, with 11 million of those viewers in the key adults 18-49 demographic. Stranger Things season two was also crowned the most popular show in the country, per data company Parrot Analytics.
[SOURCE: hollywoodreporter.com]
SYRIA ‘SAFE ZONE’ DEADLINE EXPIRES WITH TURKISH THREAT LOOMING
Turkey’s deadline to jointly establish a “safe zone” with the United States in northern Syria by the end of September has passed, leaving the threat of unilateral military intervention by Ankara hanging over the region. President Tayyip Erdogan told the United Nations last week he wanted to set up the zone along 480 km (300 miles) of border and reaching 30 km inside Syria. Under the Turkish plan, up to 2 million Syrian refugees would be settled in the safe zone, with international support. If implemented, the project could halve the number of Syrian refugees sheltering in Turkey from Syria’s eight-year conflict, and drive the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia – which Ankara says is a terrorist group threatening its security – from the border. Expanding Turkey’s military presence in Syria would also boost its weight among powers such as the United States, Russia and Iran which all seek to shape Syria’s political future, reflecting a mantra of Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu that Ankara should be “strong both at the table and in the field”.
[SOURCE: reuters.com]
Eight Things To Talk About uses the raw engagement data from the social media engagement from The Conversation Project to generate the top-ranking headlines over the course of a weekend.
A full weeks’ data (from Friday to Friday) is compiled, weighed, and sorted to produce the content for the Wrap-Up Show with J Cleveland Payne, published every Saturday as a podcast available at ThisIsTheConversation.com or wherever your favorite podcasts are found.
To ‘participate’ in the rankings of the headlines for this newsletter or the podcast, follow the Conversation Project on social media and engage with the posts to give them more ‘votes.’ The Conversation Project can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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