In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

RIP Alan Rickman. Damn. What a career, to play all sorts of roles, from Sense and Sensibility's Colonel Brandon to Galaxy Quest's Alexander Dane, and to be remembered as both Hans Gruber and Severus Snape. And what an iconic voice. My condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, and fans.

The colossal $1.6 billion jackpot has been won, by "holders of three tickets sold in Tennessee, California, and Florida. Each of the three winning tickets is worth $528.8 million, the California Lottery said." Good luck to the winners! I hope it doesn't ruin your lives! That is not sour grapes, btw. That is a legitimate wish based on the knowledge that winning the lottery has ruined lots of winners' lives. I truly hope that does not happen!

[Content Note: ICE raids] Fucking hell: "Obama's Immigration Raids Are Turning Latino Communities into Ghost Towns: Across the country, other Latino-heavy communities have grown wary of raids—which the White House has said will continue despite the recent outcry. 'The community is very, very scared,' Raul Pinto, a staff attorney with the North Carolina Justice Center, told ThinkProgress." Everything about this is indecent. I'm so angry.

[CN: Cancer] "It was one of the more dramatic moments of Barack Obama's final State of the Union address: the president turned to Joe Biden to appoint the vice-president to lead an effort to cure cancer 'once and for all.' The exchange made for one of the most buzzed about highlights of the speech, the promise of a 'moonshot' goal so lofty it almost appeared quixotic. But leading US cancer researchers and doctors say they have very real hopes for the pledge. They describe the state of research around one of the world's leading causes of death as a golden age, and expect that more funding could lead to many additional breakthroughs. 'This is truly a historic moment in the history of cancer,' said Dr Ronald DePinho, the president of the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas." Please please please let it be so.

Oh no! "Carson campaign in turmoil as finance chair quits." Gee, I hope Ben Carson's candidacy is okay! (Ha ha no I don't.)

In other presidential news, the editors of The Nation have endorsed Bernie Sanders: "He has summoned the people to a 'political revolution,' arguing that the changes our country so desperately needs can only happen when we wrest our democracy from the corrupt grip of Wall Street bankers and billionaires. We believe such a revolution is not only possible but necessary—and that's why we're endorsing Bernie Sanders for president."

Whoa! "There may be a secret landscape complete with a vast canyon hidden beneath the Antarctic ice sheet—and the canyon might just be the largest in the world. An international team of researchers has discovered evidence in satellite data that this mysterious canyon might exist beneath Princess Elizabeth Land in East Antarctica, publishing their findings in the current issue of the journal Geology. Now, an airborne survey to take radar measurements of the subglacial landscape is underway to confirm the colossal canyon, which could be wider than the Grand Canyon in some places and may span more than 1,100 kilometers (683 miles) in length, Dr. Stewart Jamieson, a geography lecturer at Durham University in England and lead author of the research, told The Huffington Post. The new data is expected to be released later this year."

I don't normally watch James Corden's Late Show (or wevthefuck it's called), but I do love his Carpool Karaoke segments, which I watch online, and his Carpool Karaoke with Adele is exceptionally great! (If you want to watch another especially terrific one, check out [CN: video autoplays] Carpool Karaoke with Stevie Wonder.)

Peter Jackson will be remaking The NeverEnding Story. Are you excited? Y/N? [Note: Several commenters noted this is satire. Whooooooops! Well: Would you be into it if it were true?!]

And finally! "Animals Who Sleep Wherever They Please." LOL!