New year’s speeches by world leaders don’t typically contain much news, but taken together, they offer a helpful view of the global mindset as we turn the calendar. So here’s a look at the most notable ones for 2018.
As the finale of Game of Thrones’s penultimate season quickly approaches, we thought it would be useful to compile a list of the most popular and outrageous fan theories left standing. Warning: there are major spoilers are ahead.
Good ol’ Microsoft Paint. The standard Microsoft Windows app was most likely the first graphics tool you ever used, but outside of creating a specific style of memes, you’ve probably graduated to more advanced programs like Photoshop or Illustrator.
Donald Trump is not the only newly-minted president causing waves.
Weather apps, although a useful thing to have on a smartphone or bookmarked on your laptop, aren’t generally known for their beauty. Ventusky, a web application launched earlier this year, wants to change that. It was created by Czech meteorological company InMeteo, the company behind In-počasí, one of that country’s most reputable weather information websites.
Bess Myerson became the first Jewish Miss America in 1945. In 1984, Vanessa Williams became the first African American to win the prestigious title (although she was famously asked to step down amid a nude photograph scandal). When Angela Perez Baraquio was crowned Miss America in 2001, she became the first Asian American to do so.
Just moments after a federal judge denied the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s request to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline on Sept. 10, the tribe and its hundreds of supporters won a huge, albeit temporary victory, when the Obama administration announced that it would not authorize any further construction of the pipeline for now.
An endangered gorilla was shot and killed yesterday, May 28, after a 4-year-old boy fell into its enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio. Now the internet is up in arms over its death, with some placing blame on the child’s parents and others calling for a boycott of the zoo.
When Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, the Nobel committee praised her “non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights” and her desire for “conciliation between the sharply divided regions and ethnic groups in her country.” She was under house arrest at the time.
When comedian Louis C.K. takes a cynical stance against technology, his musings tend to go viral. His November 2011 visit to Conan O’Brien’s late-night talk show revealed a deep-seated hatred of Twitter (“People get mad at me because I don’t follow anybody… but why do they care?”), while a September 2013 appearance included a rant about society’s addiction to cell phones (“You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not do something—that’s what the phones are taking away”).
In advance of Mother’s Day (May 8), Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has written a heartfelt message to celebrate single moms, while detailing her own story of adjusting to single parenthood after the unexpected death last year of her husband, Dave Goldberg.
As voters head to the polls today for the South Carolina Republican primary, they might have turned to Google for more information on the candidates. So what was on their mind this week? The search engine released data on election-related searches performed in South Carolina, and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s top trending question seems, at first sight, a bit odd:
When discussing the late, great Harper Lee, who died on Feb. 19, most seem to use the word “reclusive.” The To Kill a Mockingbird author rarely granted interviews (she turned down Oprah: “Honey, I already said everything I had to say”) and Time magazine even named her to its Top 10 Most Reclusive Celebrities list.
Happy new year! This week, people around the world are getting haircuts, buying new clothes, and stocking up on treats to fête the Year of the Monkey, which begins Feb. 8. Businesses across China, Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and their respective diasporas have shut down for the holidays. All of China is on vacation, and its economy is at a virtual standstill.
This post has been corrected.
A coffee shop that only serves caffeine-free, “100% chemical-free” coffee opened in Manhattan over the weekend. The Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Company, makers of the Swiss Water Process method of decaffeination, opened a pop-up studio that features a “sensory experience that includes espresso, hand crafted manually brewed coffee and cold brew options.”
A Russian plane headed for St Petersburg crashed in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula yesterday (Oct. 31), killing all 224 people on board, including 17 children.
If you decided to take a beach vacation rather than splurge on an Apple Watch this summer, you’re onto something. Studies have shown doing things makes people happier than having things. One widely acknowledged reason is the benefit of anticipation. Anyone who’s counted down the days to a trip or party knows it’s more pleasant and exciting than waiting in a long line at the Apple store.
Sasha Petraske, the visionary founder of influential cocktail bar Milk & Honey, passed away on Aug. 21 at the age of 42. Petraske and his bar—based in the Lower East Side in New York and Soho in London—are widely credited with the revival of cocktail and bartender culture.
Like many other young Americans, Taylor Pemberton went on vacation this summer and shared photos of the trip on Instagram. But instead of taking beach selfies or food ‘grams like his peers, Pemberton’s Instagram account houses a collection of incredible, everyday images from his visit to North Korea.
What to watch for today
A new trailer for Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was released yesterday (July 11) at San Diego’s Comic Con, the world-renown comic book festival. It’s the first time superhero fans are getting a glimpse of the rebooted DC Comics stars sharing the big screen (for some reason, director Zack Snyder considers his 2013 flick Man of Steel with Henry Cavill to be the first installment in DC Comics’s series of “shared universe” films, even though it only featured Superman).
Mexican officials announced today (July 12) that a top drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has escaped from a maximum security prison. Officials are on a manhunt for the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, which has been called “Mexico’s most powerful organized crime group,” on the heels of a 13-year manhunt for Guzman that ended last February, when he was re-arrested after another prison escape.
The US Navy announced on July 2 that paid maternity leave for women in the Navy and Marine Corps will be tripled to 18 weeks. The policy, effective immediately, also retroactively applies to women who have given birth since January 1, 2015.
