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13-year-old with terminal brain cancer designated honorary Secret Service agent at Joint Session of Congress

Devarjaye "DJ" Daniel was diagnosed with anaplastic ependymoma grade III in 2018.

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Devarjaye "DJ" Daniel designated honorary Secret Service agent.

One moment from President Donald Trump's address to a Joint Session of Congress night stole the show: when he designated Devarjaye "DJ" Daniel, a 13-year-old diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 2018, as an honorary Secret Service agent. DJ's passion for law enforcement inspired a personal mission that has seen him designated as an honorary officer over 900 times by police departments across the United States since 2022.

"Joining us in the gallery tonight is a young man who truly loves our police," Trump said, as cameras panned to Daniel who was lifted up by his father, Theodis Daniel. "But in 2018, DJ was diagnosed with brain cancer. The doctors gave him 5 months at most to live. That was more than 6 years ago. Since that time, DJ and his dad have been on a quest to make his dream come true.”

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

President Trump then gave DJ the surprise of his lifetime--he announced that he making him an honorary Secret Service agent. “And tonight, DJ, we're going to do you the biggest honor of them all. I am asking our new Secret Service director, Sean Curran, to officially make you an agent of the United States.”

It was a complete surprise to DJ, whose eyes became wide and shock spread across his face as he was presented with a badge by Curran. His father once again lifted him up to cheers and chants of "DJ! DJ! DJ!", and DJ reached over to hug Curran.

Daniel was diagnosed with anaplastic ependymoma grade III in 2018, a disease that causes cancerous tumors and affects the central nervous system. According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), an ependymoma is a primary central nervous system (CNS) tumor that begins in the brain or spinal cord. They are grouped in three different grades (grade I, II, or III), with grade III being the most serious. "Grade 3 ependymomas are malignant (cancerous). This means they are fast-growing tumors. They occur most often in the brain but can also occur in the spine," according to the NCI. There is currently no cure.

In an interview with the White House Instagram account, DJ opened up about the night he was diagnosed with cancer. "You want to know the craziest part? My mom bathed me and my brothers all together, and out of nowhere I locked up. My dad was calling my name and I started going to the slow thing and said, 'Stop playing with me'. I'm not gonna lie, I started to act slow. And as soon as he said that we (were) speeding all the way, running lights going to the hospital. And then next thing you know I was seizing on the table."

He continued, "They said, 'We've got to go into his brain tonight.' Ever since then, I (have) had 13 brain surgeries. That's how many times my personality has changed. And that's something that you don't hear from a terminally ill child that has five months to live. I'm gonna keep going until my gas tank runs out. And that's when God calls you home. You never know when God will call you home. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my dad. I know he's pretty proud of me, and I'm pretty proud of him too."

DJ and his father appeared on Fox News' 'Fox & Friends' on Wednesday, March 5, where he shared more about his surprise honor. "I was not expecting it," he said in the interview. "Nobody even told us, even though that they knew. Really and truly, I wasn't expecting it to be like that, to be honest."

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Trump's election was a major wake-up call for Maggie Gyllenhaal. Here's what changed.

A late-night TV interview is a guide to recognizing privilege and putting it to good use.

Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal stopped by "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" to discuss her new show, "The Deuce," but audiences got a lot more than that.

"The Deuce" is an upcoming HBO drama in which Gyllenhaal plays a sex worker. The show grapples with a number of uncomfortable topics, misogyny and power structures among them. Gyllenhaal's conversation with Colbert eventually turned to — as so much seems to these days — politics.

"I think when we were making the show, it was last summer, it was the election," she said. "Sometimes we'd be watching the debates on our lunch break. All of these conversations were bubbling under everything. We were shooting when Trump was saying, 'I can grab women's pussies if I want to.'"


[rebelmouse-image 19531322 dam="1" original_size="450x252" caption="GIFs from "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert"/YouTube." expand=1]GIFs from "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert"/YouTube.

Trump's election caused Gyllenhaal to reflect on where we actually are in society and how it compares to where we thought we were.

A man who, as Gyllenhaal alluded to, bragged about grabbing women's genitals would receive tens of millions of votes. A man who had been accused by 15 women of sexual assault or harassment would become president. A man who allegedly walked in on a teenage girls' dressing room would hold the highest office in the land. A man who once said it was OK to refer to his daughter as a "piece of ass" would be the next leader of the free world.

Whatever ideas anyone had about misogyny, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and Islamophobia being relics of America's past went out the window with Trump's election. And for Gyllenhaal, it was a wake-up call.

It's foolish to think any of those things had truly been eradicated from our society, but for some, it was easy enough to pretend these problems didn't exist.

Gyllenhaal didn't want to be complicit in America's culture of misogyny any longer, so she made a conscious decision not to let things slide anymore.

As any woman can surely attest, sexism and misogyny are everywhere. They are forced to pick battles and begrudgingly accept sexist behavior as part of working, living, existing in this world.

But as Trump's election demonstrated, putting up with the small acts of sexism can reinforce a dark, dangerous, and pervasive culture.

Realizing her privilege as a well-off Hollywood actress, Gyllenhaal could just as easily continue to let the little things slide. But she didn't want to do that anymore.

For her sake, for the sake of our country, and for the sake of our future, it's imperative to push back against injustice in all its forms.

Gyllenhaal declared that she's "not gonna take it anymore," and while she didn't exactly elaborate on what she meant by that, it's a good start.

Those of us in positions where we can fight back against bigotry and sexism should do so because it's not just about us as individuals, but us as a collective society.

Watch Gyllenhaal's interview below (she starts talking about Trump and misogyny around 7:30 into the clip).

The list of groups lining up to protest the Trump administration's policy agenda just keeps growing.Women. Immigrants and their advocates. LGBTQ Americans and their allies. Yemeni deli owners. Disabled Medicaid recipients.

And now ... dinosaurs.


On Wednesday, a large group of T. rexes — seriously, not making this up — marched on Washington to demand Congress overrule the president and continue funding national service programs.

A press release described the protest as featuring a "record number of dinosaurs," a probably technically correct statement that, nonetheless, doesn't really do the actual event justice.

Take a look:

"While dinosaurs are fun — national service extinction is a serious matter," Shirley Sagawa, CEO of Service Year Alliance, the group that organized the dino-march, said in an emailed statement.

Trump's proposed fiscal year 2018 budget would dramatically cut funding to a variety of long-standing aid organizations. Under the proposal, AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and Vista would be eliminated. The Peace Corps would also see its funding slashed.

Eliminating these programs could cause a lot of harm to human beings. The Peace Corps operates in over 60 countries on six continents.  According to AmeriCorps, the program's volunteers assisted in over 21,000 sites last year, responding to natural disasters, providing free tax preparation assistance to senior citizens, and teaching anti-drug classes in schools where opioid abuse is rampant.

Despite their passionate embrace of the cause, it is unlikely dinosaurs would be affected by the cuts (though the humans inside the inflatable suits certainly might be).

Sagawa hopes the protest will convince the Senate to reduce or eliminate the cuts when they consider the budget this month.

Photo by Nicholas Kamm/Getty Images.

"We encourage them to listen to the folks who gathered outside the Capitol and expand national service instead of letting it go extinct," she said.

If dozens of hulking, bloodthirsty carnivores can't make the case, it's likely no one can.

Correction 9/1/2017: The article misstated the name of the group that organized the protest. It is Service Year Alliance, not National Service Alliance.

Customers of an Edeka supermarket in Hamburg, Germany, came with full grocery lists this past weekend.

But many of them left empty-handed.

Photo by Daniel Roland/AFP/Getty Images.


The majority of products throughout the supermarket had been pulled from the store floor.

Entire aisles were completely barren.

No, Edeka isn't going out of business, nor have you missed any news about  widespread food shortages blanketing northern Germany.

The shelves were purposefully left empty to send an important message.

The store pulled all of its foreign products for one day, a stunt designed to prove a point about the often unconsidered benefits of diversity and the dangers of xenophobia.

Tomatoes from Spain? Gone. Olive oil from Greece? Sorry, out of luck. Cheese from France? Tragically, no.

Signs proving the supermarket's point were placed throughout the store, with messages roughly translated to sentiments like: “Without diversity, this shelf is rather boring” and "We will be poorer without diversity."

"Today, our selection has its limits,” another sign — taped above a pathetic-looking buffet — informed passing customers.

Edeka's dramatic gesture was a response to the far-right, anti-immigrant ideology that has been growing in German politics.

As the European Union continues grappling with the Syrian refugee crisis, worries about the "dangers" of immigrants — in terms of both economic and national security — have spread far and wide. Many of these perceived threats, however, are misguided or born from bigoted perceptions.

It's not just happening in Germany.

This past spring, candidate Marine Le Pen came closer to winning the French presidency than any other far-right politician in recent history. The U.K.'s stunning Brexit vote has been attributed, in large part, to fears of the "other." And in the U.S., of course, we have President Trump.

But immigrant populations play invaluable roles in many countries, including the U.S. We wouldn't have things like Google, blue jeans, many of the vegetables on our dinner plates, or even the song "God Bless America"(!) if it weren't for people immigrating to our shoes (often undocumented).

A similar point was made in Hamburg. And, according to Edeka, it was a point that's resonating well with most of its customers.

“Edeka stands for variety and diversity," said a company spokesperson, according to The Independent. "In our stores we sell numerous foods which are produced in the various regions of Germany. But only together with products from other countries it is possible to create the unique variety that our consumers value."

Our world really does work better as a melting pot, it seems.

Watch and share a video by DW News about Edeka's campaign to promote diversity: