A poster for a Louisiana strawberry festival showing two faceless black children has prompted sharply split online opinion over whether it is offensive and racist. The Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival attracts hundreds of thousands of people to the small city near Lake Pontchartrain every April, and according to organisers is second in popularity in the state only to Mardi Gras itself.
A new podcast hopes to capitalise on the huge wave of interest in the podcast Serial in order to bolster the case of Adnan Syed, who was convicted of murder but maintains his innocence. It was one of the buzziest podcasts in history, and the first series of Serial has now been downloaded over 20 million times. For those who weren’t obsessed, a recap: Serial re-examined the 1999 murder of 17-year old Baltimore schoolgirl Hae Min Lee, captivated US and world audiences and caused a wave of online amateur sleuthing. But as host Sarah Koenig and the team behind the series move on, the woman who originally brought the case to Koenig has not.
Supporters of the white police officer who faces a murder charge for shooting an unarmed black man in South Carolina, have started a campaignon a popular crowd funding site – but another site halted fundraising efforts.
Within 24 hours, as writer Dave Weigel noted, new Daily Show host Trevor Noah went from “progressive icon to villain”. The cause? A social media record that showed Noah cracking jokes that many found in poor taste – and worse, unfunny.
In the wake of several high-profile cases of white police officers killing unarmed black men, some Americans have been defending police by posting pictures of officers being helpful. “Police officers that do the wrong thing seem to be getting all the press coverage,” Chris Hall wrote on Facebook, underneath the above photo of an Ohio State Patrol officer changing a car tyre for a African-American woman. “This officer proves that for every one that does the wrong thing, there are thousands out there doing the right thing every day.”
As one of the most famous politicians in the world announced her intention to run for US president, her opponents hit back on social media. Hillary Clinton’s announcement on Sunday that she would be running for president wasn’t exactly a surprise. She made the long-anticipated declaration in a YouTube video and followed up with a tweet. But some of her opponents had already organised a welcoming party on social med
Marilyn Mosby has captured the world’s attention after she announced she was pressing charges against Baltimore officers in the death of Freddie Gray. By the end of her speech, the Baltimore prosecutor’s name was a top trending term on Twitter in the United States. The #MarilynMosby hashtag has been used over 700,000 times on Twitter in the week since the protests began.
An infographic is being used by some teachers in Baltimore schools as communities try to create learning opportunities in the classroom after the city’s riots. Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore received several visitors this week including members of the Baltimore Ravens American football team and rapper Wale in an effort to calm the unrest. Several Douglass students were involved in confrontations with police on Monday.
Some children get rid of wobbly milk teeth using a piece of string attached to a slammed door but US Olympic gold medal-winning athlete Bryan Clay had other ideas when he helped his daughter, Ellie, remove her loose tooth using one of his javelins. The 2008 Olympic decathlon champion posted a video of the feat on Twitter writing: “What you use javelins for once you’re retired.” It was retweeted over 1,600 times.
With water levels at a record low in California, vigilantes are using social media to shame their neighbours into saving more water. #Droughtshaming – a practice that began online last year – is back again as California enters its fourth summer of extreme drought. Residents who catch their neighbours wasting water are posting pictures and videos, often with addresses, on Facebook and Twitter as well as via apps. (It is the home of Silicon Valley, after all.)