TODAY'S TALKING POINTS 10-22-15

TODAY'S TALKING POINTS

Joe Biden said he’s not running for president. After weeks of people on both sides of the political aisle awaiting his announcement with bated breath, the vice president ended speculation with a statement from the White House’s Rose Garden. Biden said the grieving process he went through after his son, Beau Biden, died in May made it impossible for him to kick off a campaign to be the next POTUS.

South African police fired tear gas at students protesting higher tuition. Protesters outside Parliament in Cape Town rallied against a planned hike that could raise tuition fees by about 11%, making it harder for low-income students to access education. The ongoing protest, which has gone viral with #FeesMustFall, has been called the nation's largest student demonstration since the end of the apartheid.

130 law enforcement leaders teamed up to end mass incarceration. There are 2.2 million people behind bars and 5 million on parole and probation in the U.S. Some of those people are low-level offenders locked up for nonviolent crimes and drug offenses. This new coalition plans to push for major legislative changes by focusing on mental health and drug treatment, reclassifying crimes and changing mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent crimes. Right now, mass incarceration just kick-starts a cycle that turns first-time offenders into repeat offenders.

Mass incarceration, systemic inequity and police violence are among the issues that #BlackLivesMatter and Campaign Zero wanted presidential candidates to talk about during an additional debate. The Democratic National Committee shot down their request, but countered by OKing a presidential town hall.

WikiLeaks doxxed the head of the CIA. The secret-sharing organization published CIA Director John Brennan’s application for security clearance after a teen reportedly hacked Brennan's AOL account. The hacker, who goes by “Cracka,” probably won’t be the next Edward Snowden though, since the leaked documents didn’t contain any huge national security secrets.

The gender pay gap widened again. Despite the fact that more women than men now have college degrees, new Labor Department stats show that men’s earnings are growing at twice the rate of women’s. This means that women who work full-time brought home 81 cents for every man’s dollar earned from July through September (paywall).

The New York Mets are headed to the World Series. The Mets beat the Chicago Cubs 8-3 in the National League Championship Series.