China downplays tensions with U.S. as Xi prepares to meet Trump

Let's see.
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The first people who populated the Americas

We are getting closer to understanding who the first Americans really were
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A Sculpture of a Buddhist Deity Made From 20,000 Beetles

Located roughly an hour north from central Tokyo is a fairly nondescript government building: Itakura Town Hall in Gifu prefecture. The building houses a small gallery that counts among its collections various obscure pottery work and paintings as well as a glass-enclosed sculpture of a Buddhist deity made from roughly 20,000 beetles in numerous varieties. If you have any form of entomophobia or insectophobia I suggest you don’t read on.
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The Real Russian Threat to Central Eastern Europe

Neo-fascism. Russian disinformation. State-sponsored ethno-nationalism. And all around unwillingness to do much about any of it — yet.
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First Strike by Venom

It was a fun time at the first Crewalition Jam for this year. :-)
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VIDEO: Lava Flows Down Side of Mount Etna

A long bright-red flow of lava moved down the side of Mount Etna Monday in the latest show put on by Europe's most active volcano.
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street art and graffiti, Belgium - Hasselt (oc)

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The 9 strangest statues in Belgium.

A fountain of jazz-playing animals, an angel with a gas mask and an entire family of peeing sculptures – Belgium has no shortage of strange statues.
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Institute For Honor 2015 “Robert E. Lee Honor In Defeat” With Gary Gallagher

Gary W. Gallagher, Prof. Gary Gallagher on the U.S. Civil War, Historian Gary W. Gallagher on Command Relationships during the Civil War, Gary W. Gallagher, 2016 Cross Lecture: Gary W. Gallgher, Gary Gallagher on the Coy Barefoot Program | April 10, 2016 | S1E11
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Germans Love White Asparagus And Austrians Love Chanterelles

Deutschland (and Austria) über us.
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American Freedom: Sinclair Lewis and the Open Road

Some three decades before Kerouac and friends hit the road, Sinclair Lewis published "Free Air," one of the very first novels about an automobile-powered road trip across the United States. Steven Michels looks at the particular vision of freedom espoused in the tale, one echoed throughout Lewis’ oeuvre.
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Bank Of Canada urges Star Trek fans to stop "Spocking" their fivers.

Canadians are ‘Spocking’ their fivers in tribute to deceased actor Leonard Nimoy, aka Spock from the Star Trek series...
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Native Tongues

The making of the Dictionary of American Regional English, a five-thousand page, five-volume book documenting the history of American slang. By Simon Winchester.
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A Marvelous Moment for French Writers and Artists

The close friendship, interaction, and parallelism between writers and artists in nineteenth-century France are the subject of Anka Muhlstein’s "The Pen and the Brush." Balzac put more painters into his novels than he did writers, constantly name-checking artists and using them as visual shorthand (old men looked like Rembrandts, innocent girls like Raphaels). Zola, as a young novelist, lived much more among painters than writers, and told Degas that when he needed to describe laundresses he had simply copied from the artist’s pictures. Victor Hugo was a fine Gothicky-Romantic artist in his own right, and an innovative one too.
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Belgium (oc)

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Pay crash expected in online gig economy as millions seek work

Millions of people in South-East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa get income from online jobs. But as more get online, competition will spark a race to the bottom
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Why Does Mount Rushmore Exist?

This gargantuan shrine to democracy has never felt so surreal. By Sam Anderson.
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Here are 10 outspoken critics of Putin who died violently or in mysterious ways

Not everyone who has a quarrel with Russian President Vladimir Putin dies in violent or suspicious circumstances—far from it. But enough loud critics of Putin’s policies have been murdered that Thursday’s daylight shooting of a Russian who sought asylum in Ukraine has led to speculation of Kremlin involvement. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the shooting in Kiev of Denis Voronenkov, a former Russian Communist Party member who began sharply criticizing Putin after fleeing Russia in 2016, an “act of state terrorism by Russia.”
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Who Killed the Iceman? Clues Emerge in a Very Cold Case

When the head of a small Italian museum called Detective Inspector Alexander Horn of the Munich Police, she asked him if he investigated cold cases.
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A Delightful Dictionary for Canadian English

A reference book delves into the history of Canadian terms such as “toque,” “double-double,” and even “eh.”
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The Hand Work of the Footbound

Chinese women practiced footbinding for centuries—why is still too little understood.
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One Sloppy Land Surveyor Almost Caused a War Between Missouri and Iowa

In 1In 1839, the outcome of the “Honey War” hinged on the exact location of the Missouri-Iowa border.
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Dissecting Trump’s Most Rabid Online Following

We dissected Trump’s most rabid reddit following. Here’s what we found.
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The Wildest Party on Earth

The wildest rock-climbing event in the world happens annually in the Ozarks of Arkansas, in a u-shaped canyon with enough routes for 24 straight hours of nonstop ascents. They call it Horseshoe Hell, but don't be fooled: for outdoor athletes who love physical challenges with some partying thrown in, it's heaven.
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Winter's Best Beach Town is In Poland–Yes, Poland.

Sasha Vasilyuk, co-founder of Mr. & Mrs. Go Far, took us on a tour of the Baltic Coast
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The EU and Poland is the 'marriage' heading for the divorce courts

Thousands of Polish women have protested against the politics of the populist right-wing government in Warsaw.
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How do cuckoos know they are cuckoos?

How do the chicks of birds that use other birds to raise their young, such as cuckoos and koels know that they are cuckoos or koels and not the other type of bird?
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Tears of Solidarity

“What else we might discover, as Atwater and Ellis did, is that the problems we face can’t be solved by diversifying the personnel who control the machineries of oppression but only by dismantling those machineries entirely.” By Michael Schwalbe.
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Were we happier in the stone age?

We are far more powerful than our ancestors, but are we much happier? Historians seldom stop to ponder this question, yet ultimately, isn't it what history is all about? Our understanding and our judgment of, say, the worldwide spread of monotheistic religion surely depends on whether we conclude that it raised or lowered global happiness levels. And if the spread of monotheism had no noticeable impact on global happiness, what difference did it make?
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Trump voters in South Georgia come to terms with GOP health plan

“The way they talked it was supposed to be better…” By Craig Schneider and Misty Williams.
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Fly Guy by Venom

The sky was grey. That's the only thing that could bother today. :-)
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While Banksy makes millions, street artists are going to jail.

While Banksy makes millions from his artwork, London’s young graffiti artists are being demonised and imprisoned for expressing themselves in the exact same way as the famed street artist. Some consider graffiti a vital urban art form, while others remain convinced it is nothing more than criminal damage. These mixed views are complicated by the cultural popularity of graffiti; Banksy’s work sells for hundreds of thousands of dollars while news items with strategically positioned journalists in front of ‘cool’ spray-painted backdrops air on television. Even McDonalds has commandeered the use of fake graffiti tags in its attempt to be edgy.
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Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva of Compassion

Chinese Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe
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Carved fruits and vegetables by Japanese artist Gaku

This type of food carving is popular in fancy restaurants in China and Japan but Gaku takes it to another level.
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Russia election interference was much more than mischief-making

We no longer need to wonder what it would be like to lose a war on our own territory. We just lost one...
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Conducting the Milgram experiment in Poland, psychologists show people still obey

A replication of one of the most widely known obedience studies, the Stanley Milgram experiment, shows that even today, people are still willing to harm others in pursuit of obeying authority.
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How Smart Women Got the Chance

Nancy Weiss Malkiel’s “Keep the Damned Women Out”, a painstakingly detailed account of how coeducation came to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, is an invaluable antidote to the amnesia that has come to envelop the subject. More than that, it is an important work of cultural history. It seems a truism to observe that so profound a change could not have occurred in a vacuum, and Malkiel takes full account of the social and political revolutions that were convulsing the country in the 1960s.
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Immigration Detention | Caged by Canada, Part 1

While Canada is celebrated globally as a safe haven for refugees, hundreds of unwanted immigrants are jailed across the country. Part 1 in a Star series.
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Forest Prayers With Russia's Polytheistic Mari

The Mari people of central Russia speak a distinct language and practice a separate religion from their Christian neighbors. Photographer Sergei Poteryaev and reporter Regina Khisamova attended a traditional prayer ceremony in one of the sacred forest groves of the Mari El Republic.
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15 Great Irish Writers You’ve Probably Never Read (But Should)

It’s St. Patrick’s Day, which means that many in the US will be celebrating their Irish heritage with a pint or two—or just, you know, celebrating with a pint or two (or seventeen). But if you’re not committed to wearing a horrifying shade of green and getting completely hammered tonight, might I suggest celebrating the holiday in style with a little contemporary Irish literature instead?
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DNA Samples Reveal That Aboriginals Have Been in Australia For About 50,000 Years Already

The first people appeared in Australia about 50,000 years ago and Aboriginal people have been present in the same regions continuously since then. This was revealed by DNA in hair samples collected from Aboriginal people across Australia in the early to mid-1900s.
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Nawaz's Holi message: 'Islam gives people freedom to choose their religion'

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday delivered a progressive and inclusive message to minorities in the country, saying "no one can force others to adopt a certain religion". Nawaz began his speech with a message of inclusiveness, saying his foremost duty as a ruler is to serve followers of all religions and not one in particular. “God will not ask a ruler what he did for followers of a certain religion,” said Nawaz. “He will ask people such as me: what did we do for God’s creation?”
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1,500 acid attacks have been recorded in London since 2011

Acid attacks in Britain's capital are soaring to new heights, new data reveals. A Freedom of Information request submitted by the Mirror shows that between 2011 and 2016, London had nearly 1,500 cases of the devastating crime, which burns the skin and leaves victims cowering from their injuries.
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How the Internet Is Saving Culture, Not Killing It

There has been huge growth in digital subscription services, and they are revolutionizing every cultural industry.
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Operation London Bridge: the secret plan for the days after the Queen’s death

The long read: She is venerated around the world. She has outlasted 12 US presidents. She stands for stability and order. But her kingdom is in turmoil, and her subjects are in denial that her reign will ever end. That’s why the palace has a plan.
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National Geographic Film Shows Horrors of Duterte's Drug War

A couple of weeks before Christmas, National Geographic's Ryan Duffy joined Filipino crime beat reporters on Manila's graveyard shift. On a tip, the American rides in a convoy of press cars to the scene of a vigilante killing. So begins a new feature on the Philippines' drug war, which airs Monday. It shows the aftermath of the first of five deadly shootings reported that night; one of over 7,000 since Rodrigo Duterte began his so-called war on drugs on July 1.
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Is the dark really making me sad?

How do Scandinavians deal with long, dark winters? And what might this teach us about the relationship between our moods and sunlight? By Linda Geddes.
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A powerful new book shares dissident stories smuggled out of North Korea

Knowing that the anonymous author of The Accusation is still living in North Korea adds another layer of discomfort; the book you hold in your hands carries huge risks for him and his family.
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The death of dialect? Don't believe a word of it

Have you ever been called mardy, been mithered, complained of someone being nesh, labelled them a numpty or had people look at you blankly because a word you have used since childhood does not form part of their vocabulary? If any of the above sounds familiar then congratulations: you are living proof that the death of dialect is greatly exaggerated.
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Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women?

Tech companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to improve conditions for female employees. Here’s why not much has changed—and what might actually work.
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