April 8, 2014

• Today President Obama will sign an executive action requiring federal contractors to report salary data broken down by gender and race.
• Lies, omissions, and a nefarious Polish general: a day in the life of Russian state TV.
• The less people know about where Ukraine is located on a map, the more they want the U.S. to intervene militarily.
• New research suggests the spectrum of human emotion can be reduced to just four basic expressions.
• Citizens of Chiatura, Georgia, use a crumbling cable car system built in the 1950s as a show of superior Soviet technology for their daily commute.
• Artists in northern Pakistan have created a giant skyward-facing portrait of a young girl whose parents were killed in an American drone strike.
• The US and Iran have a common enemy: Afghanistan's heroin.
• The news that Nigeria surpassed South Africa as Africa’s largest economy is just a result of some paperwork finally getting done.
• The newly disclosed documents, however, indicate that the operation to publish [Zhivago] was run by the CIA's Soviet Russia Division.
• A writer regrets sinking 12-and-a-half years into a 224-page novel.
• Coming of age with William Wordsworth.
• In a blind playing test, 10 violinists preferred new violins to a Stradivarius.
• Tomorrow night at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, Nell Painter and TMN's Clay Risen discuss the history of the Civil Rights Act.
• Related: Following MLK's assassination, civil disturbance reached more than 100 cities—how New York avoided a riot.
• We need to learn to live with the noise...even when the noise is offensive, even when the noise is at times dangerous.
• HBO uploads the first episode of Silicon Valley to YouTube.