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France is hemorrhaging sensitive data, and people are beginning to notice
After a series of leaks of sensitive information, French officials fear the country is failing to protect its security forces from criminal gangs, terrorist groups, and hostile foreign powers.
How sensitive? Last week, a top aide to Parliament was charged with spying for North Korea. That comes after a French intelligence officer was charged with selling confidential information to organized crime groups.
Before that, an ISIS member was found with a thumb drive loaded with confidential information about 7,000 French police officers.
The sheer number of incidents is now raising questions about how vulnerable France’s institutions are to infiltration.
👉 Here’s why this matters: France plays a major role in the security of Europe and leads in efforts to control Islamist radicals and other terrorism incidents.
Black women decided the 2016 Democratic nominee. They’ll have an even bigger say in 2020.
The Democratic primaries, as they are currently built, favor a black candidate.
In recent years, the formula for winning has been to build a coalition from older black voters plus another group. For Obama, it was white progressives. For Clinton, white moderates.
Given this math, Ben Smith speaks with an expert on the Democratic field for presidential candidates. The direction is clear: The nominating system is now “favorable to a black woman.”
Smith breaks down the outlook of the three leading black candidates: Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Deval Patrick.
Additional reading:
👉Top Obama allies are ready to support a Deval Patrick presidential campaign.
👉 Kamala Harris has cult status in Iowa after the Kavanaugh hearings.
👉 Cory Booker’s message is resonating with voters — even in North Dakota.
SNAPSHOTS
People living in poorer neighborhoods do wait longer for ambulances, a new study finds. Emergency medical services times were 10% longer in the poorest zip codes compared to wealthier areas.
She won soccer’s most prestigious award — and then was immediately asked if she can twerk. Ada Hegerberg won the first ever Women’s Ballon d’Or. Her victory was marred when a French DJ and award show participant asked her if she can twerk. Her reaction was excellent.
People are angry about Amazon sharing this local news story about a delivery driver losing weight. It highlighted that the woman had found a way to work out while making deliveries. Not everyone found the story to be “feel-good.”
Pete Davidson, after his split with Ariana Grande, posted a candid Instagram about getting bullied and being suicidal. Davidson’s message seemed to address his whirlwind romance and very public breakup: “I’m trying to understand how when something happens to a guy the whole entire world just trashes him…”
Friends fans, rest assured: The show is not leaving Netflix in 2019. After users of the streaming platform learned the series would be removed on Jan. 1, a collective outrage rose up. Netflix caved and said it will remain throughout 2019.
Tumblr’s porn ban is the middle of the end of the old internet
Starting Dec. 17, Tumblr will ban all adult content on its platform. This is a big deal, and many users are threatening to leave the site because of it.
But it also gets at something broader: We’re in the middle of a slow process of losing the internet culture of the 2000s, and that is a sad thing.
Katie Notopoulos dissects this move in an excellent piece that traces the loss of digital cultures to Yahoo’s deletion of Geocities in 2009. (Yahoo also bought Tumblr in 2013.)
From the piece: “Our digital lives are our real lives, and digital culture — Tumblr culture — is real culture. When we lose that, we lose whole communities, friendships, methods of communication, jokes, and artifacts.”
People are sharing adorable pics of their babies in helmets to support Chrissy Teigen’s son
Teigen, the model, chef, TV personality, and general delight of a human being, shared a picture of her son Miles rocking a helmet because of his “adorable slightly misshapen head.”
She wrote, “If you see pictures, don't feel bad for him because he's just fixing his flat [head] and honestly he's probably gonna be even cuter with it somehow.”
We all know the internet is the Bad Place, but occasionally it’s the Good Place, too. So people shared pictures of their children wearing helmets and told Teigen not to worry.
Also, look at how cute Miles is:
