Headlines from September 2, 2016

State Dept. says $400m payment to Iran wasn’t ransom, but was delayed to create “leverage” in hostage return.
Before and after views of Southern Louisiana, devastated this week by historic flooding.
Worried by Trumputin, Congress wants to obstruct removing Russian sanctionsenergy companies have already started.
If Clinton wins, expect a new era of misogyny, just as Obama’s presidency brought racism to the fore.
“Old-fashioned sexual exploitation has been sold to today’s teenage girls as their own ‘sex-positive’ choice.”
For women, walking can be a radical declaration of autonomy and creativity.
Should Hillary win, Bill will step down from the Clinton Foundation, which will also start refusing foreign donations.
Ryan Lochte was right when he said someone pointed a gun at him. It was a gas station security guard telling him to stop peeing on the walls.
Uber’s first self-driving fleet of Volvos will debut in Pittsburgh this month, but with backup drivers present.
About 200,000 people are turning to GoFundMe to cover emergency medical expenses.
Artificial intelligence researchers deploy autonomous internet defense bot for the first time.
Caseworkers must deal with terrific ambiguity, which means plenty of kids are taken away from good parents. #longreads
Justice Dept. says it will stop contracting with private prisons, which mostly provided low-security services at 13 locations.
Behind the move to end private prison contracts: Shane Bauer’s “My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard.”
Ancient Mexicans were said not to have raised any animals, but archaeologists at Teotihuacan just unearthed…a bunny farm?
You think California is easy on pot, but this decade it arrested hundreds of thousands for marijuana-related offensesmost are black.
“Until America’s mortgage monster is brought to heel, the task of making finance safer will remain only half-done.”
Obamacare made a dent in extending coverage; a public option would bring down prices. #longreads
By pairing up with Bannon, Trump abandons centrists to focus on winning over those who already supported him.
The RNC can’t pull funding from Trump without risking low turnout and losses down the ballot.
Paul Manafort further tied to facilitating secret lobbying by Ukrainian pro-Russian parties.
It’s just 15,000 less dollars that the Trump campaign has. Squatter sells ClintonKaine.com to Trump’s marketers.
Countries all over the world have walls at their borders, and none of them work.
Drones will soon be cheap enough for any militarythey’ll all cite Obama’s policies as international precedent. #longreads
The IRS is allowing depleted water resources to be deducted, but doesn’t have any hydrologists on staff to root out fraud.
Women are the fastest-growing incarcerated segment, and struggle with environments and services designed for men.
Social media survey shows white people don’t talk about race.
Twitter’s dismal record in curtailing abuse is even worse in light of its rapid removal of Olympics content.
When is a distribution method that harms users’ brains no longer an acceptable cost of doing business? Against digital media.
Related: NPR ditches comments.
New York businesses will no longer have to individually contract out trash pickup, leading to major efficiency gains.
Los Angeles’s psychics, illusionists, and fortunetellers trick writer into becoming a better person.
Science isn’t driven by curiosityresearch is leashed to military and institutional strictures. #longreads
Dutch could ban new gas-powered cars in the next decade.
Florida prosecutor declined to charge George Zimmerman but has no problems sending kids to jail for life, even in murky cases.
Profile of an architect who builds off-kilter Lifespan Extending Villas designed to destabilize inhabitants. #longreads