HERE ARE THE TOP STORIES
The victims of the Charleston, South Carolina, church shooting have been identified, and the suspect has been arrested.
Dylann Roof, 21, is suspected of killing nine people in Wednesday night’s shooting at a historic black church in Charleston. He was arrested yesterday in North Carolina and taken back to South Carolina to face charges. Six women and three men died in the attack, which U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said is being investigated as a hate crime. The youngest victim was 26, and the oldest was 87. Here’s everything we know about them so far.
President Obama spoke about the shooting yesterday, saying he’s had to “make statements like this too many times.” He spoke about the church’s significance in civil rights history and addressed gun violence in America. “At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.”
And a little extra.
The Charleston church shooting comes less than two weeks after a white police officer was formally charged with murder in the death of Walter Scott, an unarmed black man, who was shot in North Charleston, South Carolina, in April. Both cases have the same lead prosecutor. Scarlett Wilson, “a Republican distrusted by many in the black community of Democrat-heavy Charleston, now oversees two of the most high-profile, race-related prosecutions in America,” BuzzFeed News’ Albert Samaha writes.
“Right now this is a watershed moment for her,” Pastor Thomas Dixon, head of a local community group, told Samaha. “It’ll either make her or break her. She’s not in good standing with the black community.”
BuzzFeed News reporter Joel Anderson is on the ground in Charleston, and he wrote about the area’s shifting racial demographics before the shooting. Follow Anderson on Twitter.
Europe is scrambling after another failed meeting over Greece’s bailout with two weeks left to come to a deal.
“The years change, but the Greek crisis doesn't. It owes more than it can pay, so it needs Europe to give it the money to pay, well, Europe back,” Washington Post’s Matt O'Brien writes in this overview of the crisis so far, which we found useful and accessible.
Thursday’s failed meeting of European finance ministers “reinforced fears that the country was heading for bankruptcy and a possible euro exit,” the Associated Press reports. Greece has until June 30 to get a deal or default on its bailout loan repayment to the International Monetary Fund. “If it fails to make the payment, it risks having to leave the eurozone and possibly also the European Union,” BBC News writes. The European Central Bank has scheduled an emergency meeting on Monday for the eurozone's 19 leaders.
If you want more, BBC News has a good piece on the options for Greece and what to look out for in the coming weeks.
WE’RE KEEPING AN EYE ON
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it’s not a violation of free speech rights for Texas to reject a license plate proposal featuring the Confederate flag.
“In a 5–4 decision, the court ruled that Texas’ speciality vehicle license plates constitute government speech, and the state was therefore within its rights to refuse an application by the Sons of Confederate Veterans,” BuzzFeed News Legal Editor Chris Geidner writes. The Sons of Confederate Veterans had argued that specialty license plates are private, not government, speech. Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas joined the four liberal justices in the majority opinion that said “Texas license plates are, essentially, government IDs.”
The high court also ruled that a Louisiana court “unreasonably” found that a condemned man with an IQ of 75 wasn’t entitled to a hearing on his mental capabilities, and held that towns must have a compelling state interest if they want to limit signs posted by nonprofit groups that give directions to an event differently than they limit political and ideological signs.
What’s next?
We’re expecting Supreme Court decisions on the Affordable Care Act and same-sex marriage in the coming weeks. When, exactly? Well, we don’t know for sure, though it will probably be sometime before the end of June. Geidner wrote this handy guide if you want to understand the process better.
Pro tip: If you want to know right away when these cases are decided, download the brand new BuzzFeed News app and sign up for “Major Breaking News” alerts.
DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THIS?
After 30 years, why don’t we have an HIV vaccine?
AIDS has claimed nearly 39 million lives since the first cases were reported in 1981, and HIV, the virus behind AIDS that was discovered in 1984, infects more than 2 million people each year. Yesterday, three studies were published that make modest advances toward finally developing a vaccine against HIV. But despite billions of dollars in funding, researchers say they’re still far from solving one of the hardest scientific problems of our time, BuzzFeed News’ Azeen Ghorayshi writes.
One of our science reporters, a former climate change denier, writes about how he came to Jesus on global warming.
On Thursday, the Pope told his followers to accept the reality of global warming. Now, “scientists and science writers are wondering whether this can change the minds of the small but determined band of climate science naysayers,” BuzzFeed News’ Dan Vergano writes. “I’m curious too, not so much because I’m now a science reporter and lapsed Catholic, but because my own conversion from climate denial more than two decades ago also began with a few words from an unexpected voice.”
How the new “on-demand” employee is defined could impact American labor for years to come.
“The rise of companies like Uber have created thousands of new on-demand jobs around the world that, so far, have failed to offer a single person the protections that employment is supposed to guarantee,” BuzzFeed News’ Caroline O'Donovan writes. Faced with lawsuits that could threaten their business models, Uber and other tech companies are pushing for a new classification of worker that would combine the flexibility afforded to contractors with the protections afforded to employees.
“We’re here today to determine what tastes good in water.”
For 25 years, the self-proclaimed “Oscars of water” have been held in the tiny West Virginia town of Berkeley Springs. “At a pivotal moment when the bottled water industry is booming but the national narrative is all about drought and environmental ruin, the stakes for perfecting the taste of nothingness have never been higher,” John Lingan writes for BuzzFeed in this deep dive into the world’s most prestigious water-tasting competition.
Quick things to know:
Thailand confirms the country’s first case of MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome). South Korea is currently facing a MERS outbreak, but it may be slowing down. (Reuters)
According to a January report by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 242 new gun laws have been enacted in the states since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. (BuzzFeed News)
Mexico approved same-sex marriage, but the ruling might still face a few obstacles along the way — here’s a guide. (BuzzFeed News)
The FCC wants to help America’s poorest pay for Internet. (Washington Post)
Delaware joins a growing list of states that have decriminalized possessing small amounts of marijuana. (BuzzFeed News)
2015 is likely to beat 2014 as the warmest year on record. (Mashable)
The U.S. Census Bureau is experimenting with eliminating the word “race” altogether in its 2020 survey. (Politico)
Hulk Hogan is fighting for the privacy of the world’s sex tapes: “Three years ago, we didn’t have a broadly-accepted term for the category of sex tape Hulk Hogan was featured in. Today we would call it ‘revenge porn’ or ‘involuntary porn.’” (Fusion)
And here are 13 apps that’ll teach you something new every day. (BuzzFeed)
Do you know what happened in the news this week? Take the BuzzFeed News quiz!
WEEKEND READS
Our special guest this week sharing some of her favorite stories is Mariana Marcaletti, BuzzFeed's international news coordinator. Marcaletti oversees translations of stories across our bureaus and makes sure BuzzFeed’s best stories are in multiple languages for the most relevant audiences, whether that’s German, French, Portuguese, or Español.
This piece by The Atlantic talks about loving multiple people in a non-monogamous romantic relationship, which reminded me of this very honest first-person BuzzFeed post published earlier this week. The issue is worthy of public discussion and I like the approach free of stigma and prejudices.
Our follow-up piece to the New York Times investigation into nail salon workers was published simultaneously in English and Spanish. Some protagonists of the story are Spanish speakers, so this piece is relevant for them.
This Washington Post story about a woman on her way to end a pregnancy is really moving. This character-driven piece is so detail-oriented that it makes us feel as if we were actually there on this woman's journey.
“I Watched My Boyfriend Fall In Love With Someone Else On Facebook” is self-explanatory and it's so relatable. I love how Kirsten King explains all the virtual drama, and how "leering through the virtual windowpane of someone else’s happy life" can be really tempting.
Happy Friday
On a recent trip, 6-year-old Owen Lake lost his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, at the Tampa International Airport. But the airport staff had found Hobbes and took photos of him having his own exciting adventures all over the airport. Owen and Hobbes were reunited last week, and the staff put all the photos into an album for them to take home. Kind gestures can go a long way.
