Your weekend must reads🗞️
👋🏽Welcome to The Short List weekend edition✨, your guide the best stories of the week from Paste BN. I'm John Riley, newsletter editor, and I hope your weekend has gotten off on the right foot.🦶 Let's get to the news, shall we?
Did you know?: Today marks the autumnal equinox − the unofficial start of fall 🍂 − when day and night are roughly 12 hours long each in most of the world. Here's what you need to know. Now, here are the week's must reads:
New conspiracy theory spreading online centers on COVID
💻It's a false, but rising, conspiracy theory: as COVID-19 rates climb later this year, the Biden administration will reinstate pandemic restrictions and push mail-in ballots to influence the next election. And some social media platforms are now allowing it to spread openly. Read more
- Troubling changes at X: 2024 presidential election threats now pose bigger risk
VA suicide hotline botched veteran's cry for help
🔵Workers at the national Veterans Crisis Line mismanaged communication with a veteran who died by suicide within an hour of texting the hotline, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General. The VA also failed for 10 years to establish protocols to save veterans' text messages for future follow-up. Read more
When DNA test kits unearth family secrets
🧬At-home DNA tests can yield valuable information about a person's genetic heritage. But for some families, these tests are revealing scandalous secrets that were kept from the rest of the family, often in the form of a child. Before you send off your results, mental health professionals suggest you consider the consequences and prepare for potentially life-altering news. Read more
👇🏼Don't stop now: There are more great stories below. Thanks for reading!