10 things you need to know today: August 16, 2015
Indonesian plane loses contact, presidential hopefuls swing by Iowa State Fair, and more
- 1. Indonesian plane carrying 54 goes missing
- 2. Trump, Clinton campaign at Iowa State Fair
- 3. Civil rights leader Julian Bond dies at 75
- 4. AT&T reportedly helped the NSA spy on internet traffic
- 5. Report: Amazon office employees face hostile work environment
- 6. More than a dozen U.S. counties still aren't marrying same-sex couples
- 7. Technical problems delay hundreds of Northeast flights
- 8. Joe Biden calls Chattanooga shooter "perverted jihadist"
- 9. Disney announces 2 Star Wars areas in theme parks
- 10. Jason Day leads Jordan Spieth heading into last round of PGA Championship
1. Indonesian plane carrying 54 goes missing
An Indonesian plane carrying 54 people went missing Sunday after losing contact over the country's Papua province. The Trigana Air Service flight took off from Jayapura and lost contact just nine minutes before it was supposed to land in Oksibil, the Transportation Ministry said. The airline, Trigana Air Service, noted difficult weather conditions in the region. The plane has 44 adult passengers, five children, and five crew members. The search, called off at dusk, will resume Monday morning.
2. Trump, Clinton campaign at Iowa State Fair
Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton visited the Iowa State Fair on Saturday, indulging in a pork chop and meeting a life-sized cow carved from butter. But she was upstaged by Donald Trump, who gave young fairgoers rides in his helicopter. Both candidates declined to speak at the Des Moines Register Soapbox, a fair tradition for candidates, but Bernie Sanders was game. "I apologize," he said. "We left the helicopter at home."
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3. Civil rights leader Julian Bond dies at 75
Former NAACP chairman Julian Bond died Saturday night at age 75 after a brief illness. Bond was also one of the original leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and a Georgia state legislator. "He advocated not just for African Americans, but for every group, indeed every person subject to oppression and discrimination, because he recognized the common humanity in us all," SPLC wrote in a statement Sunday.
The New York Times Southern Poverty Law Center
4. AT&T reportedly helped the NSA spy on internet traffic
The National Security Agency has been able to spy on a massive amount of internet traffic due to a partnership with AT&T dating back to 1985, ProPublica and The New York Times reported Saturday based on documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. When George W. Bush passed the Patriot Act and also secretly started a warrantless wiretapping programming in 2001, AT&T was the first company to turn over records. The company also started forwarding one billion emails per day and hundreds of millions of internet metadata records per month.
5. Report: Amazon office employees face hostile work environment
The New York Times published a scathing report on Amazon's office environment Saturday after interviewing more than 100 current and former employees. "Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk," one former Amazonian said. Founder Jeff Bezos' philosophy reportedly encourages hostility and confrontation. Several female employees at Amazon, where top leaders are all men, said they felt pushed out after creating work schedules around childcare, tending to ill relatives, or even recovering from cancer.
6. More than a dozen U.S. counties still aren't marrying same-sex couples
About 50 days after the landmark Supreme Court ruling legalized marriage equality nationwide, same-sex couples are getting married without incident in most of the country. BuzzFeed News tracked down the exceptions in a report published late Friday. In some counties, practices were unclear, but more than a dozen counties across Nebraska, Kentucky, Alabama, and Texas were either refusing to solemnize marriages or refusing to issue marriage licenses at all.
7. Technical problems delay hundreds of Northeast flights
Hundreds of flights to and from the Northeast were severely delayed or cancelled Saturday due to technical problems at a Virginia air traffic control center, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. "The FAA is continuing its root cause analysis to determine what caused the problem," the agency said in a statement. Officials said the issue was resolved around 4 p.m. Saturday, and by nightfall most flights were back on schedule.
8. Joe Biden calls Chattanooga shooter "perverted jihadist"
Vice President Joe Biden sharply veered from investigators' comments at a memorial for the Marines and sailor shot by Mohammod Youssef Abdulazeez at a Chattanooga reserve center in July. "These perverse ideologues, warped theocrats, they may be able to inspire a single lone wolf to commit a savage act, but they can never, never threaten who we are," Biden said. "When this perverted jihadist struck, everyone responded." The FBI has not yet announced a motive behind the attack.
9. Disney announces 2 Star Wars areas in theme parks
Two 14-acre Star Wars areas are coming to Disney theme parks in Anaheim and Orlando, the company announced Saturday at the D23 fan expo. Expect an immersive experience like Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The Star Wars areas will mark the largest-ever themed expansions for Disney parks. "We knew it needed to be big. We knew it needed to be great," said CEO Bob Iger. "And we knew it needed to be every bit as thrilling as the films are going to be."
10. Jason Day leads Jordan Spieth heading into last round of PGA Championship
Jason Day leads the PGA Championship, the last major of the season, at 15 under par. But ahead of the final round Sunday, Jordan Spieth, who won the Masters and the U.S. Open, sits just two strokes back. Should he overtake Day on Sunday, he'd be the first player in golf history to win all three of those tournaments in the same year. Also in the mix is Justin Rose at 12-under. Follow the action from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST on TNT and then CBS Sports.
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Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.
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