This year marks the 100th anniversary of the U.S. National Park Service, which oversees a vast landscape of roughly 84 million acres. Will and Jim Pattiz, a pair of twentysomething filmmaker brothers, have dedicated themselves to showcasing just how gorgeous our country’s natural spaces are, through a series of stunning videos with their passion project More Than Just Parks. The idea to create this visual appreciation began several years back on a road trip, after stopping by the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. Will says that park is an otherworldly experience, like stepping onto another planet. The brothers were so floored that they vowed to use their talents to share this—and other—national parks with the world.  They’ve now created seven short…

Last week, a 20-year-old former Stanford student named Brock Turner was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman at a party in Palo Alto, California last January. More specifically, “The Ohio native was convicted of assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated woman, sexually penetrating an intoxicated person with a foreign object and sexually penetrating an unconscious person with a foreign object.” The legal process has been unfolding for almost a year-and-a-half now, but the announcement of Turner’s conviction last week, subsequent sentencing and letters being made public from both the victim and Turner’s father have catalyzed a renewed fervency in conversations about rape culture and on-campus sexual assault…

Feeling down, withdrawn, and out of sorts? Don’t be surprised if your therapist asks you how much time you’ve been spending on social media. A recent study published by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine has found a significant correlation between heavy social media use and the likelihood of depression. Researchers surveyed 1,787 Americans between the ages of 19 and 32 about their social media habits and concurrently administered a scale that measures levels of depression. They found that the more time someone spends on social media, the more likely they are to be depressed. “Because social media has become such an integrated component of human interaction, it is…

Legendary rap artist Jay Z declared the U.S. government’s drug policy a total flop in a new editorial video for The New York Times.  In the video, the 46-year-old Brooklyn-born rapper, whose real name is Shawn Carter, narrates the history of the so-called ‘War on Drugs’ from the Reagan era to the present alongside an animation by artist Molly Crabapple. Carter, whose previous career as a crack dealer is a major theme in his music, called the series of harsh drug policies that began during the Nixon administration and continue to this day, an “epic failure.” He points out, as states passed harsh drug laws and mandatory minimum sentences throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, the prison population…

Advertising would feel slightly more ridiculous if men were sexualized the way women are… but only slightly. Share this on Facebook? Share image via Sarah Zelinski/YouTube.  

The 2016 election season has been a crazy political circus with Donald Trump as the ringleader. Jaw-dropping, eye-widening words that have been violently discharged from his filter-less mouth have left many in shock and disbelief. Trump has labeled Mexicans as rapists, mocked a disabled reporter, suggested that a federal judge could not fairly hear a trial because of his Mexican heritage, called for a total ban on Muslims, and attacked the parents of a slain Muslim U.S. Army officer. Trump has even bragged about being able to grope any woman as a result of his celebrity status. This was revealed in a leaked 2005 Access Hollywood tape, where Trump made other extremely vulgar…

NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: THIS GOAL HAS BEEN MET!  BUT YOU CAN GIVE TO ANOTHER WORTHY CAUSE HERE. From December 14 through December 25, GOOD Sports will feature the worthiest school athletic programs in need of funding. Ashbrook High School in Gastonia, North Carolina, used to be a softball juggernaut, until budget cuts and local economic conditions led the school to drop the program. But now math teacher Heather Carnes is trying to revive the team, and she’s asking for your help. The softball program at Ashbrook, home to 60 percent low-income students and the state’s fourth most diverse high school population, was the “best in the league” ten years ago, Carnes writes.…

On Tuesday, the International Olympic Committee granted provisional recognition to competitive cheerleading, which allows the International Cheer Union to receive IOC funding and developmental support. The announcement also puts cheerleading in the running for inclusion at the 2024 Summer Olympics. “It is a sport with growing popularity, a strong youth focus in schools and universities, and we noted that,” IOC sports director Kit McConnell told the Associated Press. The ICU, which encompasses over 4.5 million athletes and national federations from 110 countries, oversees several types of competitive cheer, including club, school, and all-star divisions. All-star cheer, which consists of private teams devoted to competition rather than sideline spirit, has grown rapidly in American over the last two decades and is…

Receptionist Leonardo Araujo was working on his computer last month when he heard Carlos Henrique scream. Henrique had just placed his newborn son Enzo, cradled in a car seat, on the front desk counter of a medical clinic in Teófilo Otoni, a city in eastern Brazil. Within moments, the car seat tottered and his son fell out. Without looking, Araujo reached with his left arm and caught the baby on its descent. After the catch, Araujo held Enzo in his arms for several minutes before placing him back in the car seat. The boy was not injured. “It was God’s work. Actually, I am still in shock,” Henrique told Globo. “I just want to forget this…

Over the last years, NSA spying revelations and anxieties over the “Pivot to Asia” have cast a new shadow over the transatlantic relationship. In response, US and EU policymakers are attempting to forge a comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (or TTIP), which promises to deepen trade and jumpstart the transatlantic economy. But to its seemingly rising chorus of opponents, TTIP is an attempt by the powers-that-be to impose a neoliberal agenda on Europe through the back door of opaque negotiations and shadowy private courts. The participants of the European Students Conference (ESC) at Yale that took place in February 2015 took stock of the debate and came to their own conclusions, seeing…