Morning Update: The Long Arm Of Glitter Justice

A sweeping criminal justice reform, Trump bans bump stocks, Penny Marshall dies at 75. Your BuzzFeed News newsletter, Dec. 19.

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The Senate has finally passed its landmark criminal justice reform package

This is a big deal — Congress has been trying and failing to make changes to the criminal justice system since Barack Obama’s first term.

Now, the Senate has passed a sweeping bill that has President Trump’s support. A House vote could come as early as this week.

It’s important to note here that the bill passed with a bipartisan support vote of 87–12. Even longtime opponents like Sens. Orrin Hatch and Ted Cruz got on board.

So what does it do? Here are three major reforms:

👉 Lessens “three strikes” sentences.

👉 Grants exemptions to mandatory minimum sentences.

👉 Allows nonviolent offenders to work toward early release from prison.

Still, the version that passed is filled with concessions: An early draft would have allowed for a much larger share of the prison population to be eligible to work toward early release.

The Trump Foundation, under investigation for its “shocking pattern of illegality,” is shutting down

New York’s Attorney General’s Office announced that the foundation — which barely donated any money — will be shuttered, and under the supervision of a judge, its funds will be distributed to charitable organizations.

The government filed suit against the Trump Foundation and its directors — President Trump and his children Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric — in June, alleging that the nonprofit was used to fund personal and political transactions.

The Attorney General’s Office said it discovered the foundation functioned “as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests.”

SNAPSHOTS

A judge told Michael Flynn “arguably you sold your country out” but agreed to delay his sentencing. The judge harshly criticized Trump’s former national security adviser, and warned that he might improve his odds of a better sentence if he finished cooperating with the government first.

Facebook allowed Netflix, Spotify, and a bank to read and delete users’ private messages. According to the New York Times, Facebook gave more than 150 companies, also including Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo, unprecedented access to users’ personal data.

Penny Marshall, the costar of Laverne and Shirley and director of films like Awakenings and A League of Their Own, has died at 75. A family spokesperson confirmed that Marshall died at her Hollywood Hills home due to complications from diabetes.

Trump banned bump stocks, saying they must be destroyed or surrendered to the government. The rule banning the devices, which allow semiautomatic weapons to fire more rapidly, is already being challenged by guns rights activists.

A woman’s Instagram tribute to her dead sugar daddy who is haunting her has gone viral. Once in a while, a story comes out that is unsummarizable. It cannot be done. So just read it.

The secret of Miles City: How a friend request shattered the innocence of a small town

Earlier this year, James E. Jensen — a former high school athletic trainer — sent a friend request to C.F., one of his former student-athletes, who is now in his early forties.

C.F. was shocked to receive the request. He had spent the better part of the last two decades trying to forget the man who he said molested him three times a week. He didn’t respond.

Instead, he began to contact former teammates in hopes of jogging their memories about Jensen. One by one, they admitted that they too had been victims of a man who made them follow his “Program.”

“The Program,” as outlined in a lawsuit filed in September, included giving the boys full-body massages while they were naked, groping them, masturbating them, and performing oral sex on some.

Lawyers for the victims believe Jensen abused as many as 200 boys in the 1990s. Read Tyler Kingkade’s shocking report from Miles City, Montana.

People are like HELL YES after this guy pranked package thieves with glitter and fart spray

We’ve all been through the pain of having a package stolen. You feel angry, helpless, wronged.

Well, enjoy this bit of vigilante justice. Sick of having his packages stolen, former NASA engineer Mark Rober decided to create the ultimate revenge machine.

He created a bait package, and inside of it a machine that blasts whoever opens it with glitter and immediately emits a fart spray. He also put four phones in it, so he could capture it all on video.

You will enjoy the footage of unsuspecting thieves utterly covered in glitter.

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