8 | EXPRESS | 06.13.2016 | MONDAY
nation+world
Students support victim at Stanford graduation
weekend rewind LOUISVILLE, KY.
Star-studded memorial honors Muhammad Ali
Brock Turner’s sentence decried by graduates at 125th commencement LIGHT POLLUTION
PALO ALTO, CALIF. Stanford University graduating students and women’s rights advocates used the school’s commencement ceremony to again express their anger over the six-month jail sentence given to a former student for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. A handful of students demonstrated Sunday during “Wacky Walk,” a rambunctious, slowmoving stroll by graduating students dressed in zany costumes that precedes the official graduation events. One person held a sign that declared, “Stanford protects rapists.” Another graduate’s sign was a message to the victim: “You are a warrior.” Organizers said they wanted to show solidarity with the woman sexually assaulted on campus last year by former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner. “It’s very important to amplify the voice of survivors,” said Brianne Huntsman, a protest organizer. The victim’s emotional statement to the court about how the assault devastated her life was widely shared online, attracting national attention to the case. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, whose keynote speech at the school’s 125th commencement
RAMIN TALAIE (GETTY IMAGES)
Many missing out on seeing the Milky Way
A graduate Sunday protests the six-month jail sentence a former Stanford swimmer got for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman on campus.
GETTY IMAGES
called on Republicans to reconsider their endorsement of Donald Trump, urged that sexual assaults be taken seriously. “If someone tells you they have been sexually assaulted, take it effing seriously and listen to them,” said Burns, who is the father of four girls. “Maybe someday we’ll make the survivor’s eloquent statement as important as Dr. [Martin Luther] King’s letter from the Birmingham jail.” The sentence for Turner — he was ordered to spend six months in jail and register as a sex offender for life — touched off an emotional national debate about
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leniency and campus sexual assault. Critics collected thousands of signatures to demand that trial Judge Aaron Persky be removed from the bench. A small plane carrying a banner reading “Protect Survivors. Not Rapists. #PerskyMustGo” flew over Stanford University Stadium ahead of Sunday’s commencement ceremonies. Turner, 20, of Oakwood, Ohio, is scheduled to be released from Santa Clara County jail in September after completing three months of his sentence. He is to get out early for good behavior. OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ (AP)
More than one-third of the world’s population can no longer see the Milky Way because of man-made lights. Among those missing out on aweinspiring Milky Way views: nearly 80 percent of North Americans and 60 percent of Europeans. Tiny Singapore has it the worst. Its entire population is out of luck. These are the findings of a new global atlas of light pollution, published Friday in the journal Science Advances. More than four-fifths of earthlings now live beneath skies polluted by artificial light, which blocks out the Milky Way for more than a third of them, according to the research. “It’s a big part of our connection to the cosmos — and it’s been lost,” coauthor Christopher Elvidge said in a statement. (AP)
DOG MEAT
The number of signatures on a petition by animal rights campaigners against an annual dog-meat festival due to take place this month in the southern Chinese city of Yulin. Some 30 million dogs are killed across Asia every year for their meat, with more than a third of that number in China, campaigners say. The Yulin festival is scheduled to start June 21. (THE WASHINGTON POST)
Sanders to meet with Clinton after last Democratic contest Tuesday
Muhammad Ali was laid to rest Friday in a cemetery he chose more than a decade ago. The burial was followed by a starstudded memorial service where the boxing great was eulogized as a brash and wildly charismatic breaker of racial barriers. The memorial capped nearly a full day of mourning in Louisville for Ali, the three-time heavyweight champion of the world who died last week at 74 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. (AP) AFGHANISTAN
Obama OKs new steps for troops to fight Taliban President Barack Obama granted military commanders new powers to help Afghan troops combat the Taliban, officials said Friday, in a move that pulls the U.S. further from the president’s goal of ending the conflict before he leaves office. The new measures will permit military leaders to send U.S. troops on battlefield missions with conventional Afghan forces and will expand the use of U.S. air power for offensive missions against the Taliban. (TWP) POLITICS
GOP leaders ponder a future with Trump GOP leaders got feisty discussing Donald Trump at the three-day, Mitt Romney-hosted E2 summit, which ended Saturday in Park City, Utah. Romney warned that a Trump presidency could normalize racism, misogyny and bigotry in the United States. CEO Meg Whitman compared the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to Adolf Hitler. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan was asked how he could explain his endorsement of Trump to a child, to which he responded that Trump displays a “much better” temperament in private. (TWP/AP)
Dozens of Nigerian army officers fired over corruption, theft of cash meant for fight against Boko Haram