8 Things You Need To Know This AM — Oct 07 2015

Ben Carson said he wouldn’t have “let” the Oregon shooter kill him, proving he’s just a comments section troll gone public. Hey, whoever lost a loved one to the tragic shooting in Oregon: Ben Carson is sorry for your loss, but he kind of thinks it’s your friend or family member’s fault for getting shot. Like, what was your loved one doing standing around and living life like that? Carson wouldn’t have just stood around. As he said during an appearance on Fox & Friends, Carson would’ve saved the day. “Not only would I probably not cooperate with him, I would not just stand there and let him shoot me,” Carson, who wasn’t at the community college when the shooting occurred, very bravely claimed. “I would say: 'Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can’t get us all.’” (Mother Jones)

Ashley Judd shared a harrowing story of being sexually harassed by a famous studio mogul.

Hollywood’s gender inequality problem just got a lot more depressing: in an interview for Variety’s “Power of Women” issue, Ashley Judd revealed a dark incident from her time filming the 1997 thriller Kiss The Girls. According to Judd, a powerful studio exec sexually harassed her, constantly invited her to his hotel room, and asked her to watch him take a shower. The actress described the burden of her internalized shame and the years it took her to even acknowledge that her experience qualified as sexual harassment. “I think that talking about it is essential to the process of becoming aware,” Judd said. “Accepting that this is reality and then ultimately taking action.” (Variety)

The Justice Department will release 6,000 prisoners at the end of the month as a result of drug sentencing reforms. A total of 6,000 inmates from federal prisons across the country will be released early — due to new guidelines on drug crimes set by the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Faced with incessant overcrowding and the surging costs of housing prisoners, the Commission voted to reduce the average sentence of drug offenders by about two years, and apply the change retroactively. This will occur between October 30th and November 2nd, and will be the largest one-time release of federal prisoners ever. (Washington Post)

Rihanna called Rachel Dolezal “a bit of a hero,” which is funny because we would say the same thing about whoever finally managed to release Rihanna’s new album. In between jetting off to various luxurious vacations and not releasing her album, Rihanna found the time to weigh in on the Rachel Dolezal scandal in a Vanity Fair cover story. While you may have thought that the “Bitch Better Have My Money” singer would have harsh words for the former NAACP chapter president, who pretended to be Black, she instead called Dolezal “a bit of a hero.” “She kind of flipped on society a bit,” Rihanna said. “Is it such a horrible thing that she pretended to be black? Black is a great thing and I think she legit changed people’s perspective a bit and woke people up.” (The Guardian)

U.S. officials have changed their story on the deadly airstrike that destroyed a Kunduz hospital, they now call it a “mistake." In his testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan admitted that an American airstrike “mistakenly struck” the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, killing 22 civilians, and causing the humanitarian organization to withdraw from the area. Army General John Campbell claimed that the airstrike was conducted at the behest of Afghan forces in order to combat Taliban militants in the city. “We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility,” Campbell said. (BBC News)

Stephenie Meyer has released a gender-swapped version of Twilight. So she wrote fanfiction of her own book? Good news for die-hard Twilight fans: in honor of her best-selling novel’s 10th anniversary, Stephenie Meyer has written a new sexy vampire story. Well, kind of. In the 442-page Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined, Meyer presents a gender-swapped version of her famous romance, replacing Bella Swan with a moody teen boy named Beau, and vampire heartthrob Edward Cullen with vampire femme fatale Edythe. Meyer writes in the forward that she hopes this retelling will prove to Twilight detractors that Bella was never a damsel in distress, but instead, a “human in distress.” (Daily Dot)

Kickstarter teamed up with the United Nations Refugee Agency to help raise money for Syrian refugees. In an unprecedented collaboration, Kickstarter has joined the UNHCR to help raise $4 billion for the U.N. to support Syrian refugees. After being contacted by the White House regarding the ever escalating crisis, Kickstarter decided to eschew its own “no charity” rule by launching a dedicated landing page for a campaign to aid Syrians. Donated funds will be transferred “almost instantaneously” and without exception (donors don’t need to set up a Kickstarter account and no fundraising threshold needs to be met) to the U.N. Refugee Agency. “We thought, at the White House’s invitation, that we can make a modest but positive impact on this really global, extraordinary crisis,” Kickstarter spokesman Justin Kazmark said of the initiative, which raised nearly $40,000 in its first four hours. (Huffington Post)

Cheerios had to recall 1.8 million boxes of gluten-free cereal because they accidentally contained gluten. Don’t worry, Cheerios — we lie about being gluten-free all the time, too. If you’re trying to live a gluten-free life, and typically start your day by eating Cheerios, you may want to find an alternative breakfast, at least for a little while: General Mills has recalled 1.8 million boxes of gluten-free Cheerios that may contain added wheat flour, calling the oversight “purely human error.” The food manufacturer has released details via their website on how the tainted boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios and original Cheerios can be identified. (Quartz)