Bay Area Town Reels After Mass Shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival

A man opened fire at the 41st annual Gilroy Garlic Festival in Northern California, killing at least 3 people and injuring a dozen others. Among the dead was 6-year-old Steven Romero, who was attending the festival with his mother and grandmother.

Minutes after the shooting began, police fatally shot the suspect. The shooter, 19, posted minutes before the shooting and urged Instagram followers read a book popular with white supremacists on extremist websites. Some witnesses reported seeing a second gunman, and the investigation continues.

Gilroy joins several other California communities impacted by mass violence in the past decade, including Isla Vista, San Bernardino, Oakland, Poway, and Thousand Oaks.

Take Action: Use our simple template to email your reps and demand they make laws to keep our communities safer.

Orange is the New Black Launches the Poussey Washington Fund for Criminal Justice Reform

In its seven seasons, Orange is the New Black has tackled a variety of social issues through its characters and their storylines. Now, the Netflix show is launching a project that hopes to address some of those issues IRL. The Poussey Washington Fund (named after the beloved OITNB character played by Samira Wiley) will provide financial support to eight non-profits tackling criminal justice and policy reform, immigrants’ rights, and the effects of mass incarceration.

This isn’t the first time that OITNB has taken its activism beyond the show, as several of its actors and writers have been involved with social justice work over the years. Learn more about the organizations involved or donate to the fund here.

You Can Thank This College Student for 100 New Science Words in British Sign Language

A college student took it upon himself to create a whole new set of sign language for scientific words. Liam McMulkin, who is deaf, was tired of the lengthy process of watching interpreters finger spelling terms like “deoxyribonucleotide” during his lectures (meaning that each letter would have to be signed to manually spell out a word). As a summer project, McMulkin created over 100 scientific signs that have now been officially accepted into British Sign Language, making the study of science more accessible for deaf scientists and scholars.

• Why aren’t more people talking about… how public schools in South Dakota and Kentucky are mandated by the state to display the statement, “In God We Trust.”

• Meanwhile, in Tokyo… over 80,000 tons of recyclable materials will be used to make medals for the 2020 Olympics.
  

• My hero today is… this 14-year-old bomb attack survivor and top Iraqi table tennis player.

• Today in viral cuteness… this baboon who got his world rocked by a magic trick.

• I’m obsessed with… Leonardo DiCaprio saying that he thinks pupusas are better than tacos, which is a huge revelation for El Salvadorans everywhere (seriously, the amount of messages I got from my relatives about this is absurd).

Do good, get famous.

We want to feature you in The Breakdown. Tell us one way you’ve bettered your community recently, and we’ll include some of our favorite answers in The Breakdown next week. LET’S DO THIS.

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