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The gymnasts who heroically confronted Larry Nassar over sexual assault are fighting for a bill to protect other survivors.

The gymnasts who heroically confronted Larry Nassar over sexual assault are fighting for a bill to protect other survivors.

Studies have shown that children who were sexually abused normally wait until the ages of 48 to 52 to report their abuse.

In order to account for this, 37 states introduced legislation to extend the amount of time sexual abuse victims can file lawsuits against their abusers and organizations that have covered up the abuse in 2019.

But in the state of Texas, the language in a new bill, which would increase the amount of time victims of abuse can take legal action against organizations that covered up abuse was surprisingly removed.

Not everyone is having it.

Jordan Schwikert, Alyssa Baumann and Tasha Schwikert, three of the gymnasts who accused Larry Nassar of sexual abuse and USA Gymnastics of covering up that abuse, want the language to return.

They appeared in front of aTexas Senate committee to make sure future generations are protected in ways that they weren't.

“I decided to testify today because I wanted to make sure that what happened to me and my sister never happens again," Schwikert said.

In the state of Texas, those who were sexually abused as children can file a lawsuit against their alleged abuser and the organization involved for up to15 years after they turn 18, or the age of 33. House Bill 3809 would raise the statute of limitations to 30 years after they turn 18, or the age of 48.

However, the law was amended, removing organizations from the longer statute of limitations. And yes, there was a reason for it. "Sexual assault is not something organizations do, it's what individuals do," said Rep. Craig Goldman who both introduced and amended the legislation. "Any employer in the state can employ somebody and not know that they have done this in their past."

But the point of the law isn't to punish organizations who don't know what their employees are doing behind closed doors. It's to prevent organizations from covering up abuse, thus allowing it to continue.

Under the law, victims would still have to provide evidence that the organization covered up their abuse.

The bill passed in the House by 143-0, but now there's a move to restore the bill to its original language. “Texas lawmakers have a moral duty to allow survivors like myself to hold everyone who played a role in the abuse accountable," Schwikert said. “Exempting institutions creates a world in which the cycle of abuse can continue. It's not enough to just hold abusers accountable — we must also look at the institutions and what they failed to do."

Photo by Anthony Lanzilote/Getty Images

This bill needs to become law.

In case you need a reason as to why this is important, Larry Nassar is currently doing time for child pornography and sexual assault. He was accused of sexually assaulting 265 women while pretending it was medical treatment. It's all sorts of messed up that he got away with it for as long as he did.

Hopefully, we won't have another Larry Nassar in the future, thanks in part to the brave gymnasts who are willing to speak out and to fight for the rights of others.

Photo by RENA LAVERTY/AFP/Getty Images

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There is no shortage of dire news about the state of modern recycling. Most recently, this NPR article shared the jaw-dropping statistic that about 5% of all plastics produced get recycled, meaning the rest of it ends up in landfills. While the underlying concerns here are sound, I worry that the public narrative around recycling has gotten so pessimistic that it will make people give up on it entirely instead of seeing the opportunities to improve it. What if instead of focusing on what isn’t working, we looked at these news stories as an invitation to do better?

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Brendan Fraser might be making the greatest career comeback ever, racking up accolades and award nominations for his dramatic, transformative role in “The Whale." But the OG Fraser fans (the ones who watch “Doom Patrol” solely to hear his voice and proudly pronounce his last name as Fray-zure, for this is the proper pronunciation) have known of his remarkable talent since the 90s, when he embodied the ultimate charming, dashing—and slightly goofball—Hollywood action lead.

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Native Siberian shares what daily life entails in the coldest village on Earth

See how the people of Yakutia, Siberia take showers, do laundry, go to school and more in minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit.

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A man in the Yakutia region of Siberia takes an ice bath in minus 50 degrees Celsius.

For most of us, waking up to a temperature of minus 50 degrees would spell catastrophe. Normal life would come to a screeching halt, we'd be scrambling to deal with frozen pipes and power outages, school and work would be canceled and weather warnings would tell us not to venture outside due to frostbite risk.

But in the Yakutia region of Siberia, that's just an average winter day where life goes on as usual.

When you live in the coldest inhabited area on Earth, your entire life is arranged around dealing with ridiculously cold temperatures. Villages don't have running water because freezing pipes wouldn't allow for water treatment. Kids go to school unless the temp drops below minus 55 degrees Celsius (which is then considered dangerous). Showering involves spending hours stoking a fire in the bathhouse to create a steamy, warm room.

Native Siberian Kiun B. has created a series of documentary short films detailing what daily life is like in Yakutia's frigid winters. She was born and raised in Yakutsk, Siberia, widely recognized as the coldest city on Earth, where average winter temperatures hover around minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit. As seen in her videos, smaller villages in the Yakutia region regularly dip down into the negative 50s, with the lowest recorded temp in the Yakut village of Oymayakon reaching a mindblowing minus 96 degrees Fahrenheit.

The popularity of Kiun's YouTube channel demonstrates how curious people are about life in such harsh conditions, as her videos have been viewed by tens of millions of people in the past year alone.

Check out this video detailing a day in the life of a family in a Yakutia village.

Can you imagine going out to use an outhouse in minus 40 degrees? Oof.

Another of Kiun's videos goes into more detail about how people shower and do laundry in the region. You might assume they wouldn't line-dry their laundry outdoors, but they do.

Watch:

What do people wear to protect themselves from the negative temperatures? Frostbite is a real risk, so it's important to have the right kinds of clothing and outdoor gear to stay safe and relatively comfortable.

Kiun shared some frigid fashion norms from Yakutsk, which include traditional fur hats and boots as well as lots of layers and down jackets.

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(Seriously, please don't try this at home.)

The way humans have learned to adapt to drastically different environments, from the sweltering tropics to the Arctic tundra, is incredible, and it's fascinating to get a close-up look at how people make life work in those extremes. Thank you, Kiun B., for giving us a glimpse of what it's like to experience life in the dead of winter in the world's coldest inhabited places.

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