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Now, the links you’re here for:
‘How do I convince the Home Office I’m a lesbian?’ (Kirstie Brewer, BBC)
In the past interviewers had a tendency to ask intrusive questions about sexual behaviour, says Zofia Duszynska, a solicitor with Duncan Lewis, the UK’s biggest provider of legal aid.
“Now rather than physical descriptions, decision-makers require an emotional journey, for applicants to describe how they discovered they were gay and the emotional impact on them,” she says.
Karen Smith, a volunteer at the Lesbian Immigration Support Group (LISG), agrees. She says the Home Office has a “fixation” with the idea that the asylum-seeker should take the interviewer “on a journey” when answering questions about how or when they realised they were a lesbian.
But as Angel experienced herself, pinpointing the start of this journey may not be easy. Often a woman “may not ‘know’ she is a lesbian until years after she first ‘felt different’ and instinctively knew that she had to hide that difference,” Smith says.
The great vape debate: are e-cigarettes saving smokers or creating new addicts? (Sarah Boseley, Guardian)
A transatlantic schism has opened up over vaping and health. In the US, the war on vaping is being pursued by activists, politicians and scientists who believe that tobacco companies are cynically promoting e-cigarettes as a means to get people addicted to nicotine, which will – sooner or later – lead them to cigarettes. In the UK, anti-smoking campaigners and health experts counter that for many adult smokers, vaping offers the best hope of avoiding a premature death.
The two sides periodically break into open hostilities. The claim by PHE that vaping is 95% safer than smoking tobacco, frequently quoted by e-cigarette manufacturers and sellers, has been criticised as misleading by anti-smoking campaigners in the US. Matt Myers, who heads the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in Washington DC, the biggest anti-smoking organisation in the world, has called the 95%-safer figure “mere fiction”.
If miscarriage is so normal, why doesn’t anybody talk about it? (Anna Lea Hand, Longreads)
And then it happens. Late on a Wednesday night I start to feel heavy, deep cramping and a heat and loosening near my cervix, a feeling similar to right before I get my period. Even though I’ve made it beyond the traditional 12-week-you’re-in-the-clear zone, I know something is not sitting right. I wake up at 3:00am Thursday morning and google “signs of a miscarriage,” and end up on Mayo Clinic’s website. I am bleeding a little, but I’m still unclear about what I’m experiencing. I call the obstetrics department of the hospital first thing in the morning and say, “I think I’m having a miscarriage,” and because I haven’t started my prenatal care with them, they ask me who has confirmed that I am pregnant as if I’m making things up. I am insulted that they think I don’t know my own body. They hesitantly agree to see me and tell me where to go. Already I feel like a problem. Already I feel out of place.
How a Hacker’s Mom Broke Into a Prison—and the Warden’s Computer (Lily Hay Newman, Wired)
In fact, Rita had encountered no resistance at all inside the prison. She told the guards at the entrance that she was conducting a surprise health inspection and they not only allowed her in, but let her keep her cell phone, with which she recorded the entire operation. In the facility’s kitchen, she checked the temperatures in refrigerators and freezers, pretended to swab for bacteria on the floors and counters, looked for expired food, and took photos.
But Rita also asked to see employee work areas and break areas, the prison’s network operations center, and even the server room—all allegedly to check for insect infestations, humidity levels, and mold. No one said no. She was even allowed to roam the prison alone, giving her ample time to take photos and plant her Rubber Duckies.
The Lovely Hill: Where People Live Longer and Happier (Emily Esfahani Smith, The Atlantic)
The death rate from cancer for Adventist men is 60 percent lower than that of the average California male; for Adventist women, it is 75 percent lower. According to Loma Linda University, ground zero in the Adventist Health Studies, “Death from coronary heart disease among Adventist men was 66 percent [lower compared to their California peers]; for Adventist women, it was 98 percent [lower]. Stroke death rates for Adventist men were 72 percent [lower], compared to their non-Adventist counterparts. For Adventist women, death from stroke was 82 percent [lower].”
These facts have led Buettner, a National Geographic Explorer, to label Loma Linda America’s hot spot (or “blue zone“) of health and longevity. Their physical health is not the only thing outpacing that of regular Americans. On measures of mental health and well-being, the Adventists also score much higher than the average American.
Image credit: Dinos