HERE ARE THE TOP STORIES
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians are scrambling to stay in the Dominican Republic.
Haiti has long been “plagued with ineffective governance and dwindling natural resources,” BuzzFeed News’ Hayes Brown writes, amplified in the aftermath of a 2010 earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people, according to the Haitian government. These conditions pushed many Haitians to migrate to the neighboring, wealthier Dominican Republic. But the Dominican Constitutional Court passed a ruling in 2013 tightening citizenship laws, which left thousands stateless.
After intense protests against the ruling, “the Dominican government passed a new law last year, setting up a program under which people could ‘register to a special scheme to obtain a residence permit which would be needed to later claim citizenship in the country,’” Brown writes. Non-citizens face a deadline today to provide documentation to qualify, some of whom only know the Dominican Republic as their home.
And a little extra.
Deportations could begin soon. “While officials have said there will be no mass round-ups, authorities have prepared 12 buses and opened processing centers along the border with Haiti to expedite repatriations,” the Associated Press writes. Officials say about 250,000 people started the application process as of Monday, but “only 10,000 had met all the requirements for legal residency,” according to the AP.
The U.S. government wants to completely ban trans fat from food.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is giving companies three years to remove partially hydrogenated oils, the main contributor to trans fat, from their food. The FDA says the oils, which are found in most fried food, are not “generally recognized as safe” and that their eradication could save thousands of lives.
“Trans fats are considered the most dangerous type of fat in the modern diet, because they significantly raise bad cholesterol in the body, according to the Mayo Clinic,” BuzzFeed News’ Stephanie McNeal writes.
And a little extra.
The Washington Post has a story on the 100-year-old professor who pushed the FDA for this ban. Fred Kummerow first published research warning about trans fat in 1957, filed a petition with the FDA in 2009, and sued in 2013.
WE’RE KEEPING AN EYE ON
The U.K.’s secretary of state for international development has urged countries to donate more money to help Syrian refugees.
Justine Greening said helping those who flee Syria’s civil war to neighboring countries would do more good than just helping those who flee west. “The conflict has recently entered its fifth year and has created over 4 million refugees,” BuzzFeed News’ Shyamantha Asokan writes.
The U.K.’s £800 million in aid has helped those in nearby states such as Syria and Lebanon, Greening said, and she wants other European countries to do the same. But the U.K. took some criticism from a United Nations official for not taking in as many refugees as other European nations, including Germany and Sweden.
What’s next?
Refugees continue to be pushed out of Syria. Rebel and Kurdish forces recaptured a Syrian border town from ISIS, the New York Times reports: “The United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday that fighting in the area had pushed more than 23,000 new refugees into Turkey since June 3, adding to the nearly two million Syrian refugees already there.”
DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THIS?
The FBI is investigating the St. Louis Cardinals for allegedly hacking the Houston Astros’ computer network to gain information about players.
“According to the [New York] Times, the FBI claims ‘the hacking was executed by vengeful front-office employees for the Cardinals,’ whose former GM, Jeff Luhnow, had left the Cardinals for the Astros in 2011,” BuzzFeed News’ Lindsey Adler writes. But according to the report, “the intrusion did not appear to be sophisticated.”
“Once the investigative process has been completed by federal law enforcement officials, we will evaluate the next steps and will make decisions promptly,” Major League Baseball said in a statement. St. Louis has the best record in baseball this year, and has four World Series appearances and two championships since 2004.
Gap is closing a lot of its full-price stores. That means dark times ahead for America’s worst shopping malls.
“Gap, the quintessential mall clothing store, plans to close 25% of its full-price stores in North America in the next few years, and the move spells trouble for the country’s worst malls,” BuzzFeed News’ Sapna Maheshwari writes. Higher-end malls, referred to as “A” malls by analysts, court wealthy shoppers with brands like Tiffany and Co. and Apple, while lower-performing malls — the C’s and D’s — face closures as national retailers like Gap and J.C. Penney close up shop.
“More than 200 U.S. malls are considered C or below and face the greatest risk of closing during the next several years, according to a January report from research firm Green Street Advisors,” Maheshwari writes.
Quick things to know:
The Golden State Warriors won the 2015 NBA Finals in a 105–97 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers. It’s their first championship since 1975. (BuzzFeed News)
Six students, five of whom were visiting the U.S. from Ireland, were killed after an apartment building balcony collapsed a few blocks from the University of California, Berkeley, campus. (BuzzFeed News)
Real-estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump announced he is running for U.S. president as a Republican. (BuzzFeed News)
A New York appeals court heard arguments over grand jury records in the chokehold death of Eric Garner. (Reuters)
Prosecutors say the man charged with planning a shootout targeting an anti-Islam event in Texas wanted to join ISIS and attack the Super Bowl. (Associated Press)
Lions and tigers missing from a zoo in Tbilisi, Georgia, have been found dead after floods destroyed their enclosures. (Sky News)
Read about the seven minutes in 2000 when the Clinton White House considered endorsing marriage equality. (BuzzFeed News)
Here are 10 must-read essays on Rachel Dolezal, identity, and what it means to be black. (BuzzFeed Ideas)
There will be 37 new emoji in Unicode 8.0, the industry standard, including a taco — finally. (Quartz)
Nintendo will release Mario Maker, a game that lets players make their own stages in visual styles from various classic games, in September. Things are gonna get weird. (The Verge)
Happy Wednesday
Graduating high school students face a lot: separating from close friends, deciding what comes next and, for some, paying for what comes next. But before that, the seniors of Portsmouth High School in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, just wanted to shake it all off. The class of more than 230 students flash-mobbed a performance to Taylor Swift’s hit song “Shake It Off” during their graduation ceremony, and the crowd loved it. It’s Wednesday, people. We’re halfway to the weekend. So go ahead: make like the class of 2015 and shake it off.
