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:
MISSOURI SCHOOL IS CLOSED AFTER THE FATHER OF THE STATE’S FIRST CORONAVIRUS PATIENT BROKE SELF QUARANTINE SO HE COULD ATTEND A DANCE WITH HIS YOUNGER DAUGHTER AND HER CLASSMATES
The father of a Missouri woman who tested positive for coronavirus violated self-quarantine rules to attend a school dance with his younger daughter. The family, from St Louis, were asked to self-isolate by health officials after the woman, in her 20s, called the county’s health hotline to report a high fever and cough. She arrived back in the U.S. at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on March 3 after a study trip to Italy. A day later, she took a home to St Louis after spending a night at a friend’s place, prompting Amtrak to shut down that line. Amtrak has since started notifying other passengers who were on Amtrak train 303 at the time, and said it was out of service as it disinfects and cleans both the trains and the stations at Chicago and St Louis. The woman was tested for COVID-19 on March 6, and the results came back positive the next day. Despite the instruction to self-isolate, the patient’s father attended a father-daughter dinner dance hosted by the Villa Duchesne and Oak Hill School at the Ritz-Carlton in Clayton with his younger child on Saturday. The school has since informed parents of its decision to close today in order to ‘gather information and guidance from health officials’.
[SOURCE: dailymail.co.uk]
ITALY EXTENDS CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN TO ENTIRE COUNTRY
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced Monday that the government has extended internal travel restrictions to the entire country until April 3, after initially locking down the country’s northern region in an effort to contain the coronavirus. It’s an extreme measure that effectively locks down 60 million people in one of the most populated countries in Europe, where more people have tested positive for the coronavirus than any country outside of China. Conte also announced that all public gatherings and sporting events would be banned.
[SOURCE: axios.com]
QUEENSLAND FAMILY TOILET PAPER MISTAKE BEFORE CORONAVIRUS PANIC
An accidental order of toilet paper has led to one family sitting on a goldmine of Australia’s most-coveted item as coronavirus panic-buying continues to make headlines. The Janetzki family of six, from Queensland, use toilet-paper subscription service Who Gives A Crap. Every 12 weeks a box of 48 extra-length, 100 per cent recycled rolls arrive on their doorstep from the company who donates 50 per cent of their profits to building toilets in developing countries. When Haidee Janetzki decided to edit her usual subscription, she thought she was ordering 48 rolls – but when her order arrived she was shocked to see two large pallets filled with toilet rolls on her doorstep. She counted 48 boxes filled with 48 rolls each, that’s a whopping 2304 toilet rolls, or a 12-year supply for the Janetzki family that cost them $3264.
[SOURCE: yahoo.com]
LED ZEPPELIN WINS ‘STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN’ COPYRIGHT DISPUTE
Led Zeppelin prevailed in a long-running copyright dispute after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a jury verdict saying the rock band’s 1971 megahit “Stairway to Heaven” did not illegally borrow from Spirit’s 1968 track “Taurus.” The copyright battle dates to 2014, when the estate of Spirit guitarist Randy Wolfe sued Led Zeppelin, alleging copyright infringement. Wolfe, whose stage name was Randy California, died in 1997. A jury ruled against the estate two years later, after which attorneys for the estate sought a new trial. In 2018, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court ruled in favor of the estate. In response, Led Zeppelin’s attorneys sought a rehearing before the full 9th Circuit, which heard the case in September.
[SOURCE: nbcnews.com]
STRIP CLUBS GIVING AWAY FREE MASKS, HAND SANITIZER DUE TO CORONAVIRUS
Two of the top strip clubs in the country are doing their part to protect the public from COVID-19 … and it sure beats the hell outta schlepping to Costco. Here’s the deal … the world-famous Little Darlings in Las Vegas just announced a massive giveaway: 50,000 bottles of free hand sanitizer, one for each paying customer while supplies last. Across the country in Tampa, Deja Vu Showgirls is giving away free face masks to the first 10,000 paying customers. As you know … fears over the spread of coronavirus are leading to empty shelves in all kinds of stores from coast-to-coast … with people panic-buying masks, hand wipes, hand sanitizer, soap, toilet paper and all sorts of necessities. So, instead of waiting in seemingly endless lines at big box stores … you can skip the headache and pick up these in-demand items while getting a lap dance.
[SOURCE: tmz.com]
TAYLOR SWIFT MAKES A DONATION OF $1 MILLION TO TENNESSEE TORNADO RELIEF
Taylor Swift was a longtime Nashville resident, and has come out in support of the March 3rd tornado victims. According to her spokesperson, Tree Paine, the pop star added to the Middle Tennessee Emergency Fund, a sum of $1 million. Swift expressed her devastation that dozens of people in her former home had lost their lives and more were losing their homes. She took to her Instagram story calling Nashville her home and added a link to the Middle Tennessee Emergency Response Fund, at which the death toll stood at 24.
[SOURCE: msn.com]
MEXICAN WOMEN STAY HOME TO PROTEST FEMICIDES IN ‘A DAY WITHOUT US’
What would happen if all the women in a country simply disappeared? Mexico got a preview Monday, when women across the country stayed home as part of a 24-hour strike to protest staggering levels of violence against women. Calling it “a day without us” or “a day without women,” countless women skipped work, school and social functions, leaving classrooms half full, trains and buses empty and fewer cars on the streets. Female passengers travel in the near-empty women’s section of the metro bus during the national women’s strike in Mexico City Monday. About 10 women are killed in Mexico each day. There’s a name for the killing of women because of their gender: femicide. Mexico has tracked femicides for the past eight years. In February, the country’s attorney general said femicides have increased 137% over the last five years, four times more than the general homicide rate.
[SOURCE: npr.org]
TRIAL OF SUSPECTS IN 2014 DOWNING OF MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT 17 OPENS
Relatives sat listening with bowed heads and eyes closed as the names of all 298 victims of a missile strike on a Malaysian airliner were read out in a Dutch court on Monday as the murder trial of four fugitive defendants began. Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was hit by a surface-to-air missile on July 17, 2014 while flying over Ukrainian territory held by pro-Russian rebels fighting government forces. The airliner was on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. None of the accused in the disaster – three Russians and a Ukrainian – were present in the courtroom and all four are believed to be in Russia. Only one sent a defense lawyer. Judges ruled that the men had waived their rights to attend and said proceedings would continue without them.
[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 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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