Caitlin Hu

My videochat is constantly on. Any one of several friends might be in the call window, blank-faced, headphones on, writing their own work, reading emails, checking Facebook, as I do the same. We rarely look up. We never speak out loud. The great thing about these calls is that they’re not activities; they’re just bridges that turn my desk into one half of a shared table. In other words, they’re very much like hanging out in real life. Hence the name of Google’s video-calling service: hangouts.

It’s a dangerous time to be a child. According to UNICEF’s 2014 year-end report, 15 million children are trapped in six major conflicts in the Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan, the State of Palestine, Syria and Ukraine. And that’s not counting the effects of recent bombings in Yemen, or of slow burning crises in places like Afghanistan and Nigeria. Worldwide, seven million children now live as refugees. ”Never in recent memory have so many children been subjected to such unspeakable brutality,” wrote UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake.

In a flash of grease and sugar, junk food staples like Bugles, Hot Pockets, corn dogs and fast-food chicken “poppers” have infiltrated the exclusive world of food art. An anonymous Instagram chef going by the pseudonym Jacques LaMerde is making a splash on social media by plating and photographing lowbrow food, switching out edible flowers and artisanal pancetta for preservatives and pink slime.

It’s been seven years since Hillary Clinton’s last run at the Oval Office, and about three decades since she was first accused of angling for presidential power—way back in the early 1990s, when she campaigned for universal health care as First Lady.

Depression, envy, and even loneliness have been linked to Facebook use by multiple studies. Instagram may make us feel even worse. But one app promises a social network that does the opposite, by actually treating depression.

The mythic “salaryman,” in shirt, suit and tie, has been an icon of urban culture in Japan since the 1920s. Usually cast as a hierarchy-minded, unimaginative, binge-drinking manager type, the salaryman’s corporate loyalty is legendary, his sleep deprivation heroic. “Fun” is not among his traditional descriptors.

Just days after the four-year anniversary of Syria’s bloody civil war, new photos of Syrian rebels’ weapons suggest increasingly ambitious innovation in their DIY arms manufacturing. Although anti-government groups like the Free Syrian Army have repeatedly called for—and sometimes received—arms donations from foreign governments, homemade weapons cobbled together from farming and construction equipment continue to play an important part in the conflict. They have been deployed on all sides, from Syrian government forces’ nail-filled “barrel bombs” to the Islamic State’s improvised explosive devices to rebel Islamist coalition Shamiyya Front’s gas-canister-loaded cannon, the Borkan (“Volcano”).

What to watch for today

This post has been updated.

An eagle named Darshan launched into flight yesterday (Mar. 14) from the top of the world’s tallest building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa tower, with a live-stream camera strapped to its back. The minute-and-a-half-long flight over Dubai, organized by the advocacy group Freedom Conservation, offers vertiginous views of the city’s downtown.

Putin is not dead, confirmed Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov this morning. Despite recent rumors and the trending hashtag #ПутинУмер (Putin is dead), the Russian president is still in good health, reported Reuters.

Buried in the sugar cane fields of southern Florida, on the southeast corner of Lake Okeechobee, lies a small community called Miracle Village. Here, 52 pale duplexes once housed migrant workers. Now they are home to 110 convicted sex offenders.

Istanbul’s streets have been flooded with men in skirts this week, to the dismay of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The worst isn’t the screams or the snow or the mind-numbing blare of “Night on Bald Mountain“ on repeat. It’s the cowbells: a rusty jangle that means the Christmas monsters are coming.

Every year around this time, people in the Netherlands paint themselves in blackface and go around pretending to be Santa’s African slaves. According to polls, 92% of Dutch people think this is just fine.

Stalin, Bulgaria, is now called Varna. Tajikistan’s Stalinabad is now Dushanbe. Azerbaijan’s Stalino has become Çaylı. In East Germany, Stalinstadt is Eisenhüttenstadt, and the former Stalino, Ukraine, is now Donetsk.

It costs €400 ($500) to be smuggled out of Europe.