July 14, 2016

• New British PM appoints Boris Johnson foreign secretary, for "glorified trade promotion and PR."
• Reminder: When British governments change, the Queen is briefly in charge.
• France's presidential hairdresser gets $10,958 a month, a third less than Hollande, who's partially bald.
• Related: What really happened on Bastille Day (happy Bastille Day!).
• Democrats could filibuster today as Republicans refuse to fund Zika research without anti-abortion riders.
• Trump’s foreign policy for Central Asia shows a pragmatic tilt—if you’re trying to do business.
• RNC speakers include Tim Tebow, Peter Thiel, Trump's family.
• Case Western summer classes canceled for a week so university can house riot police in town for the RNC.
• Philadelphia airport workers vote to strike and disrupt DNC travel.
• Highways, which facilitated white flight and urban ghettos, have become a symbolic stronghold for racial protests.
• The way we talk about racist violence gives agency to people’s skin, which is ridiculous and unhelpful.
• Thanks to the demand for perfect looking food, half of all American produce is thrown away.
• Investigators consider charging Exxon for climate denial conspiracy, with the nature of free speech—which cannot include fraud—at stake.
• Wildlife hospital opens first-ever blood bank for birds that arrive injured during migration to Israel.
• China’s investments into research on early humans recenter origins in Asia, not Africa.
• Human voices hold many fascinatingly gendered valences; vocal training is an underreported part of gender transitioning.
• New research suggests that dinosaurs didn't roar, they mumbled or cooed with their mouths closed.
• Now that medical records are digital, they draw a much higher price on the dark web than credit cards.
• Contemporary art is dead, unless you’re willing to see tech as the next big thing, as important as Picasso or Duchamp.
• FOUND magazine launches podcast, with Davy Rothbart and a guy from Chicago who wants to become the "Asian Oprah."
• Reunited, LCD Soundsystem plays festivals but can no longer draw crowds.
• LCD Soundsystem introduces the world’s first underground park—100 acres beneath the Lower East Side.