News Information and Media Site: The revolutionary acts of Simone Biles

THE BIG STORY

A doctor said a mob assaulted him, called him racist slurs, and mocked his accent for promoting a mask mandate

Faisal Khan, a public health doctor in Missouri's St. Louis County, spoke at a council meeting on Tuesday about the importance of enforcing a mask mandate in the area, where more than half of the population is unvaccinated, during a surge of infections from the Delta variant.

For his advocacy, he was jeered at, surrounded and jostled, called racial slurs, and mocked. "I was shaking from the whole experience," Khan told BuzzFeed News. "I've never experienced anything like that in the more than 25 years that I've been in public health service."

Let's see how Missouri is doing in coronavirus cases.

Source: https://data.buzzfeed.com/projects/2020-05-covid-surges/

Oh. Well surely hospitalizations are—

So you'd think this would be a *good* time for the city to have a mask mandate. The St. Louis County Council decided otherwise.

"I'm saddened not by the racist and vile personal abuse directed at me after I left the meeting or the physical jostling, but by the fact that Tuesday's meeting was a superspreader event," Khan said. "That was the first thing that struck me as I looked across the sea of unmasked faces."

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

A judge questioned if Capitol rioters are getting off too easy for "terrorizing members of Congress"

The government has been inking deals in the riot cases that involve low-level misdemeanors, and US District Chief Judge Beryl Howell is wondering if the light punishments would deter people from storming the Capitol again.

It was the second time this week that a judge questioned whether defendants charged in connection with Jan. 6 are getting off too lightly in plea deals, even if they're not accused of more serious criminal activity, such as attacking police.

On a completely unrelated note, an insurrectionist who pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of demonstrating in the Capitol spent the weeks leading up to his plea promoting a video game he says he's building where an animated Donald Trump shoots and threatens monsters, members of "antifa," "Dem zombies," and other assorted enemies.

More:

👉 The officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 don't have faith that Congress's new investigation will change anything.

SNAPSHOTS

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Scarlett Johansson is suing Disney for releasing Black Widow on its streaming service. The actor said she was promised the release would be exclusively theatrical.

Mila Kunis said she "regrets" making Ashton Kutcher sell his $200,000 ticket to space because she was "selfish and hormonal" after just giving birth. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ELAMIN'S BACK (FOR THIS ONE BLURB)

What Simone Biles did at the Olympics is revolutionary

There's never been anyone like Biles when it comes to gymnastics. She revolutionized the sport when she was participating in it — and now she's revolutionizing it when she's not. After pulling out of some events at this year's Games, she said "the mental is not there." "For Biles to say that the pressure was too much is unprecedented," Elamin writes. "It is also a staggering vindication of the way the conversations about mental health have shifted in the last decade or so."

More Olympics:

👉 Biles explained exactly what happened during her "petrifying" vault after previously saying she could die if it went wrong

👉 Biles thanked her supporters for making her realize she's "more than [her] accomplishments and gymnastics"

👉 Even Olympians get stuck in a social media feedback loop

👉 Gorgeous photos show what the last Tokyo Olympics looked like in 1964

SEX WEEK

Once more into the britches

These Gen Z women think sex positivity is overrated. "We all really embraced third-wave feminism and sex positivity, and it impacted us so negatively," one woman told BuzzFeed contributor Madeleine Holden. "Being told that you should be having sex with people you don't have any relationship with really put it in our minds that sex doesn't matter. I feel like we all just kinda got f***** over."

Black gay porn stars tell the truth about creaming. Reporter Michael Blackmon takes a, err, deep dive into what has become a point of pride for some Black gay adult performers, but the trend is not without potential danger.

Wishing you a Friday that's exactly as long as it needs to be,
Brandon

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