Headlines Edition

Friday Headlines: The queen is dead.

“When that lady sits down at the piano and gets her body and soul all over some righteous song, she’ll scare the shit out of you. And you’ll know—you’ll swear—that she’s still the best fuckin’ singer this fucked-up country has ever produced.” Much has been said about Aretha Franklin, who died yesterday at 76, but no one said it as well as Billy Preston.

How Aretha Franklin teaches us to persevere through life's most trying moments.

Abrazos no balazos. López Obrador wants to demilitarize Mexico's approach to drugs.

To hit its recruiting targets, the US military would need to lower its conviction, education, and health standards.

It is your right as an American to read what you will, to write what you think, and to publish what you believe. The press is neither the enemy of the people nor its ally, but rather its possession. Today, as throughout American history, press freedom is under attack. It’s yours to save, or not.

Anecdotally, the more Trump attacks the media, the more college students are interested in journalism degrees.

Speculative journalism: It's 2190, and black Houstonians are redlined into neighborhoods exposed to rising seas.

To move from speaking standard, which is to say white, English to employing black linguistic patterns or slang successfully is a sonic journey for which there are few, if any, shortcuts. How Sorry to Bother You and BlacKkKlansman are raising the question of what it means to “sound” black.

To see how Republicans will defend a possible Trump n-word tape, recall what they did after Access Hollywood.

When seemingly innocuous art and architecture Twitter accounts turn out to be hotbeds of white supremacy.

The active ingredient in Roundup is detected in nearly all popular oat-based snack bars and cereals in the US.

Utilizing multiple Wi-Fi antennas, researchers were able to detect dangerous objects inside bags with 99% accuracy.

Where Feynman failed, MIT mathematicians succeed in breaking spaghetti in half: Twist, then bring the ends together.

Ruling that Pastafarianism isn't a religion, a Dutch court says a follower can't wear a colander in ID photos.

Since 2001, the Thai government's "gastrodiplomacy" has helped its cuisine surge in the West.

“If I had seen myself reflected in any of the media I consumed growing up, it would’ve helped me understand myself really sooner, or given me the validation I never really got.” The many ways coming-out videos are an enormous help to those who can’t, won’t, or haven’t yet.

In Southwest Australia, the indigenous calendar has six seasons—right now it's Djilba, first spring, season of conception.

The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors is a DMT-inspired temple/artwork by a couple who met and dropped acid together in 1975.

This intricate, exhaustive diagram depicting the history of alternative music is worth staring at for a while.

Live in Oakland? Sign up for a sociological study on how people share public space daily.

Austere, symmetrical images of synchronized swimmers, by photographer Mária Švarbová.

After funding setbacks, a Colorado school district moves to a four-day schedule, which could save $1 million a year.

Channel Blade Runner and enhance images to prevent crimes in a brilliant, voice-controlled game by Nicole He.

A photo from Cape Canaveral of a rocket blasting off through this month's Perseid meteor shower.