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:
DISNEY’S PIXAR IS BEING SUED BY A SAN FRANCISCO TATTOO ARTIST WHO SAYS HER DESIGNS FOR A UNICORN-EMBLAZONED VAN IN THE UPCOMING ANIMATED MOVIE ‘ONWARD’ WERE STOLEN
A van with a celestial unicorn emblazoned on its side is set to play a role in Pixar’s upcoming “Onward” film, whose story centers on two brothers’ quest to resurrect their dead father for 24 hours and whose cast includes Octavia Spencer, Ali Wong, Chris Patt, and Tom Holland. But the van is also central to a lawsuit against the animation studio after a San Francisco artist Sweet Cicely Daniher accused Pixar of ripping the unicorn design from artwork that she painted onto her 1972 Chevrolet G10 van, “Vanicorn.” Daniher, a unicorn fanatic and tattoo artist, is suing the animation studio over copyright infringement, The Hollywood Reporter reported. Disney and Pixar did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
[SOURCE: businessinsider.com]
TRUMP OFFERED WIKILEAKS’ JULIAN ASSANGE A PARDON IF HE COVERED UP RUSSIAN HACKING OF DEMOCRATS
President Donald Trump offered a pardon through an intermediary to Julian Assange if the WikiLeaks chief agreed to say that Russia was not involved in hacking emails from Democrats during the 2016 presidential election, a lawyer for Assange reportedly told a court in London on Wednesday. Assange’s lawyer Edward Fitzgerald made that claim during a hearing related to the U.S. request to extradite Assange from the United Kingdom to face more than a dozen criminal charges in the United States, according to The Daily Beast news site. Fitzgerald referred in that hearing to a statement from Jennifer Robinson, another lawyer for Assange, saying that then-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., told Assange that, “on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr. Assange … said Russia had nothing to do with the DNC [Democratic National Committee] leaks,” The Daily Beast reported.
[SOURCE: cnbc.com]
MAN SUES CEDARS-SINAI HOSPITAL AFTER HIS WIFE DIED DURING C-SECTION
The birth of his second son in April 2016 was supposed to be the happiest day of Charles Johnson’s life. Instead, he suffered an unbelievable tragedy. His wife Kira had a normal pregnancy but during her scheduled Cesarean section, Johnson noticed blood was seeping into her catheter. Hospital staff eventually ordered a CT scan, along with testing and lab work. By the time they opened Kira’s body, her abdomen was filled with 3 ½ liters of blood. Ten hours after giving birth — on April 23 — Kira died from a blood hemorrhage. Now a single dad of two young sons, Johnson wants to help other families and hold medical professionals accountable. He’s suing Cedars-Sinai for Kira’s death. The hospital has not spoken publicly about the case due to privacy concerns.
[SOURCE: atlantablackstar.com]
BURGER KING CUSTOMER HOSPITALIZED AFTER CHICKEN FRIES DISASTER
Megan Tomlinson says that when she bit into one of the fries she experienced immediate pain and her mouth started bleeding. When she got home, she allegedly started to throw up blood. Tomlinson then headed to the hospital where employees found “three metal densities” in her Gastrointestinal tract, says Fox News. The metal was removed from her body and sent for testing, where Cibo Tech Laboratories found that it looked like it had come from a broken pen-knife of utility blade. The lab determined that the metal fragments were not cooked along with the raw chicken, indicating that it’s unlikely the metal snapped off from machinery during the cooking process.
[SOURCE: yahoo.com]
RISING RAPPER POP SMOKE SHOT DEAD IN L.A.
Pop Smoke, the rising New York rapper whose gruff-voiced style made fans of stars like Cardi B and Nicki Minaj, was shot and killed in Los Angeles on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the LAPD confirmed the rapper’s death to Rolling Stone. The Los Angeles police responded to an emergency call at 4:20 a.m. this morning after masked gunmen broke into a house where the rapper was staying, the rep confirmed. Pop Smoke was transferred to a local hospital and pronounced dead when he arrived. He was 20. The rapper’s death came just days after his new mixtape, Meet the Woo 2, debuted in the Top Ten of the Rolling Stone albums chart.
[SOURCE: msn.com]
GEORGE ZIMMERMAN SUES PETE BUTTIGIEG AND ELIZABETH WARREN OVER TRAYVON MARTIN TWEETS
George Zimmerman has filed a defamation lawsuit against Democratic presidential hopefuls Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren, claiming that when they paid tribute to Trayvon Martin earlier this month, they inaccurately linked Martin’s death with gun violence to “garner votes in the Black community.” Zimmerman’s lawsuit accuses Warren and Buttigieg of “actual malice or at a minimum a reckless disregard for the truth” for tweeting about Martin on February 5, which would have been his 25th birthday. In February 2012, when Martin was 17, Zimmerman shot and killed the unarmed teen in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman was acquitted by a jury after he claimed he acted in self-defense. Trayvon’s death sparked widespread protests and launched the Black Lives Matter movement.
[SOURCE: thegrio.com]
DEMI LOVATO GETS CANDID ON BODY IMAGE STRUGGLES, EATING DISORDER
During her appearance on the podcast “Pretty Big Deal with Ashley Graham”published Tuesday, the “Anyone” songstress got real about her battle with disordered eating and her journey to embracing herself. Lovato, 25, explained to host Graham how she wrongly thought she was in recovery from an eating disorder when she became fixated on “extreme dieting” and over-exercising. When she was in this mindset, Lovato says she worked out three times a day and wished someone had been there to tell her to slow down. Because of these past struggles, Lovato is determined to release her next album without “trying to look a certain way or fit a certain mold.”
[SOURCE: usatoday.com]
NINE KILLED AT TWO SHISHA BARS IN GERMANY IN SUSPECTED FAR-RIGHT ATTACK
A gunman suspected of shooting nine people dead at two shisha bars in Germany is believed to have a far-right background, prosecutors said Thursday. The shooting spree took place at multiple locations in Hanau, a city around 25 kilometers (16 miles) east of Frankfurt, on Wednesday night. Authorities believe the suspect, a 43-year-old man, returned home after the rampage and shot himself. He was found dead in his apartment early Thursday morning along with the body of his 72-year-old mother. Both had died from gunshot wounds, according to the region’s interior minister, Peter Beuth. The total number of people killed — including the suspect — is 11, with another person seriously injured, added Beuth.
[SOURCE: cnn.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 the past day.
A full weeks’ data (from Friday to Friday) is compiled, weighed, and sorted to produce the content for the Weekly Wrap-Up with J Cleveland Payne, published every Saturday as a podcast available at ThisIsTheConversation.com or wherever your favorite podcasts are found.
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