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:
CALIFORNIA CYPRESS COLLEGE PROFESSOR ON LEAVE OF ABSENCE AFTER CLAIMING POLICE AREN’T ‘HEROES’, STUDENT REACTS
A left-wing California college professor who defended cancel culture and repeatedly talked down to a student who called police “heroes” has herself been canceled after video of the virtual class went viral. The unidentified, first-year adjunct professor at Cypress College in Cypress, Calif., claimed she would be in “more danger” if she called 911 during an armed home invasion and cops responded. Now she’s on a leave of absence for the rest of the semester and will not be returning in the fall, the school said in a statement early Saturday morning. The educator told 19-year-old student Braden Ellis, a business major, that police were created in the American South to track down runaway slaves and suggested that policing is inherently a form of systemic racism. Video of the exchange shows his calm response to the teacher’s aggressive line of questioning and attempt to derail his arguments against cancel culture and antipolice sentiment. The video begins with the professor responding to Ellis’ arguments, noting, “A lot of police officers have committed an atrocious crime and have gotten away with it and have never been convicted.” The presentation itself is not seen in the video, but Ellis said he argued against “cancel culture” and mentioned several controversies involving TV shows and the police as part of an assignment for a communications class he is taking to fulfill a graduation requirement. Despite the fiasco, Ellis declined to identify the teacher by name and said she deserved to maintain at least some privacy.
[SOURCE: foxnews.com / ENGAGEMENT: 12.21%]
BILL AND MELINDA GATES ANNOUNCE THEY’RE DIVORCING — AND THERE ISN’T A PRENUP
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, once the richest guy on the planet, whose net worth is over $100 billion, and his staggeringly wealthy wife Melinda Gates — who’s worth $70 billion — announced Monday they’re getting divorced but will keep working together at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest private charitable foundation. The pair broke the divorce news in identical tweets. The split will be under the microscope — becoming the second breakup of a Seattle-area multi-billionaire power couple, and one that’ll reportedly be settled without a prenup. According to TMZ, divorce documents from Melinda Gates ask for a ruling that the marriage ended “as of the date in the separation contract.” The contract isn’t included, but its existence indicates there’s no prenup, TMZ reported. She isn’t asking for any spousal support, and requests an April 2022 trial. The Gates’ foundation, which Bill, 65, and Melinda, 56, started in 2000, is the largest such private organization in the world, worth more than $40 billion.
[SOURCE: nydailynews.com / ENGAGEMENT: 8.68%]
US BEGINS REUNITING SOME FAMILIES SEPARATED AT MEXICO BORDER
The Biden administration said Monday that four families that were separated at the Mexico border during Donald Trump’s presidency will be reunited in the United States this week in what Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas calls “just the beginning” of a broader effort. Two of the four families include mothers who were separated from their children in late 2017, one Honduran and another Mexican, Mayorkas said, declining to detail their identities. He described them as children who were 3 years old at the time and “teenagers who have had to live without their parent during their most formative years.” Parents will return to the United States on humanitarian parole while authorities consider other longer-term forms of legal status, said Michelle Brane, executive director of the administration’s Family Reunification Task Force. The children are already in the U.S. Exactly how many families will reunite in the United States and in what order is linked to negotiations with the American Civil Liberties Union to settle a federal lawsuit in San Diego, but Mayorkas said there were more to come. More than 5,500 children were separated from their parents during the Trump administration going back to July 1, 2017, many of them under a “zero-tolerance” policy to criminally prosecute any adult who entered the country illegally, according to court filings. The Biden administration is doing its own count going back to Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 and, according to Brane, believes more than 1,000 families remain separated.
[SOURCE: apnews.com / ENGAGEMENT: 6.76%]
REACHING ‘HERD IMMUNITY’ IS UNLIKELY IN THE U.S., EXPERTS NOW BELIEVE
Early in the pandemic, when vaccines for the coronavirus were still just a glimmer on the horizon, the term “herd immunity” came to signify the endgame: the point when enough Americans would be protected from the virus so we could be rid of the pathogen and reclaim our lives. Now, more than half of adults in the United States have been inoculated with at least one dose of a vaccine. But daily vaccination rates are slipping, and there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable — at least not in the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever. Instead, they are coming to the conclusion that rather than making a long-promised exit, the virus will most likely become a manageable threat that will continue to circulate in the United States for years to come, still causing hospitalizations and deaths but in much smaller numbers. How much smaller is uncertain and depends in part on how much of the nation, and the world, becomes vaccinated and how the coronavirus evolves. It is already clear, however, that the virus is changing too quickly, new variants are spreading too easily and vaccination is proceeding too slowly for herd immunity to be within reach anytime soon. Continued immunizations, especially for people at highest risk because of age, exposure or health status, will be crucial to limiting the severity of outbreaks, if not their frequency, experts believe.
[SOURCE: nytimes.com / ENGAEGMENT: 5.15%]
NO ‘SNL’ CAST MEMBERS PLAN TO BOYCOTT ELON MUSK’S EPISODE
Elon Musk is hosting “SNL” on May 8, a booking that did not appear to be very well-received by some cast members and writers. But none of them plan to boycott the upcoming episode, a person close to production told TheWrap. On Friday, Page Six reported that “Saturday Night Live” cast members won’t be forced to appear alongside controversial billionaire Elon Musk when he hosts the show. That’s true, our source said, except that unwritten *rule* is not Musk-specific. If a cast member or writer was upset or uncomfortable performing with any host, executive producer Lorne Michaels would let them sit that one out. And in this case, as of Thursday, it sounds like no one is actually taking that option. (In hindsight, a whole bunch probably regret not exercising that option when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump hosted the long-running sketch comedy program in 2015.) Miley Cyrus will be Musk’s musical guest, her sixth time undertaking the gig.
[SOURCE: thewrap.com / ENGAGEMENT: 5.00%]
VERIZON SELLS AOL AND YAHOO FOR ABOUT HALF OF WHAT IT PAID
Verizon has sold its AOL and Yahoo properties to Apollo Global Management in a deal said to be worth $5 billion, about half of the nearly $9 billion Verizon originally paid for the pair. Verizon will maintain a 10 percent stake in the company, now known as Yahoo and led by CEO Guru Gowrappan. The deal, which includes Verizon’s ad tech business, was heavily rumored over the last week and is still subject to closing conditions. Once complete, it’ll bring an end to Verizon’s troubled experiment with media production and advertising. Apollo is a private equity firm that owns the Venetian resort in Las Vegas and crafts retailer Michaels. Apollo co-founder Leon Black recently stepped down as Chairman, soon after it was revealed that he paid more than $150 million to Jeffrey Epstein. Yes, that Jeffrey Epstein. Verizon originally paid $4.4 billion for AOL in 2015 and another $4.5 billion for Yahoo two years later. The media divisions, which included properties like Yahoo Sports, TechCrunch and Engadget, were consolidated under the absurdly named Oath, later renamed Verizon Media Group in 2018 after Verizon admitted defeat and wrote off about half of its value. Back in the day, AOL was how people connected to the internet and Yahoo was its front page. At their peaks, AOL had a market capitalization of more than $200 billion and Yahoo more than $125 billion.
[SOURCE: theverge.com / ENGAGEMENT: 4.56%]
TEXAS CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION HEADS TO RUNOFF WITH TWO REPUBLICANS IN THE LEAD
Two Republicans are leading in Texas’ 6th congressional district, likely shutting out Democrats out from from competing in the runoff in what they hoped would be a competitive seat in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs. Susan Wright was the top vote-getter on Saturday night. Her husband, Ron Wright, previously held the seat before dying from COVID-19 and a battle with lung cancer. As of Sunday afternoon with 99% of the vote tallied, Republican Texas state Representative Jake Ellzey was in second place, leading Democrat Jana Lynne Sanchez by less than 400 votes. Sanchez issued a concession letter on Sunday. Twenty-three candidates, including 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats, ran in the open primary. Wright and Ellzey advancing forward marked a loss for the anti-Trump wing of the Republican Party, after Marine Michael Wood got just 3.19% of the vote. Wood was backed by Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, and was a self-proclaimed anti-Trump candidate.
[SOURCE: cbsnews.com / ENGAGEMENT: 3.97%]
HILLARY CLINTON SAYS U.S. SHOULD BE READY FOR ‘HUGE CONSEQUENCES’ OF BIDEN DECISION TO WITHDRAW FROM AFGHANISTAN
Hillary Clinton said Sunday the United States should be ready to face serious consequences of President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Axios broke news last week that both Clinton and Condoleezza Rice expressed concern about the decision to members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. CNN’s Fareed Zakaria asked Clinton, “What do you think of that decision?” Clinton just said, “Well, it’s been made. And I know it is a very difficult decision. This is what we call a wicked problem. You know there are consequences both foreseen and unintended of staying and of leaving. The president has made the decision to leave.” Clinton went on to say the U.S. should “focus on two huge consequences”
[SOURCE: mediaite.com / ENGAGEMENT: 3.82%]
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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