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The Daily Sea Surface Temperature - click on 'World (60S-60N)' to toggle with North Atlantic data - compiled by the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine. BBC: Sudden heat increase in seas around UK and Ireland. Science News: Why is the North Atlantic breaking heat records? New Scientist: UK and Ireland suffer one of the most severe marine heatwaves on Earth. Vox: The world’s oceans are extremely hot. We’re about to find out what happens next. The Conversation: here's what that (ocean heat) means for humans and ecosystems around the world.
posted by Wordshore at 12:46 PM PST - 47 comments

How a Grad Student Uncovered the Largest Known Slave Auction in the U.S. Lauren Davila made a stunning discovery as a graduate student at the College of Charleston: an ad for a slave auction larger than any historian had yet identified. The find yields a new understanding of the enormous harm of such a transaction.
posted by dfm500 at 11:23 AM PST - 14 comments

Pain is like a memory, a path reinforced every time we walk down it. As such, it’s quite possible that writing this is an act of self-harm. It’s not just that it hurts to write, although it does; it’s that when I started thinking about this piece, reading around it, even jotting down notes, I felt the pain in my forearms flare up again, and for a month or two I considered calling it off. My physiotherapist would call that “avoidance”. I would call it “learning from experience”, given that it was writing that got me here in the first place. A June 2023 Guardian long read by Oliver Franklin-Wallis on his struggle to find relief from chronic pain. Content warning: moderate self-harm and suicidal ideation. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 11:19 AM PST - 23 comments

Critically, the bench is classless. Particularly a park bench. From well-dressed ladies to homeless men, from horny teens to elderly people-watchers and pigeon-feeders, they come out to just be in the world a little. It exemplifies a certain kind of publicness, a truly democratic intervention and a place to be private in public, a small space in the melee of the metropolis where it is acceptable to do nothing, to consume nothing, to just be. Truly, a free bench is a wonderful thing. from A Place of Both Solitude and Belonging: In Praise of the Park Bench
posted by chavenet at 10:50 AM PST - 22 comments

That gold theft, like the recent gold theft, involved a Brink’s truck, an airplane, cargo handlers, and smooth crooks who could vanish unseen. Both jobs would need inside help. [more inside]
posted by sardonyx at 10:11 AM PST - 13 comments

Supreme Court Rules Against Navajo Nation in water supply case CNN The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against the Navajo Nation, dismissing a lawsuit arguing that the federal government has the legal duty under treaties signed in the 1800s to develop a plan to provide the tribe with an adequate water supply. The ruling was 5-4 against the Navajos with Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivering the opinion of the court. Justice Neil Gorsuch, filed a dissenting opinion joined by the court’s liberal justices. [more inside]
posted by AnyUsernameWillDo at 9:53 AM PST - 19 comments

The Justice Department’s report [on Minneapolis PD] was almost uniformly critical, painting a disturbing portrait of a dysfunctional law enforcement agency where illegal conduct was common, racism was pervasive and misconduct was tolerated. Minneapolis Police Used Illegal, Abusive Practices for Years, Justice Dept. Finds [more inside]
posted by paimapi at 9:45 AM PST - 23 comments

Sophie Houlden announces they've made an epicycle clock web app. [more inside]
posted by AlSweigart at 9:37 AM PST - 20 comments

A decade after the cancelation of Brendan Small's affectionate skewering of metal culture, Metalocalypse is getting a proper conclusion with Army of the Doomstar. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:50 AM PST - 17 comments

The 25 Most Influential Works of Postwar Queer Literature (NYT gift) Writers Roxane Gay, James Ijames, Lisa Kron, Thomas Page McBee, Neel Mukherjee, and Edmund White created the list.
posted by box at 8:14 AM PST - 26 comments

Protecting ideas lies along a thin line of safeguarding creators’ work without stifling creativity and innovation. Ravensburger is still targeting an August 18 release date for Disney Lorcana despite receiving a lawsuit alleging it's a "stolen game".
posted by Etrigan at 6:37 AM PST - 21 comments

Wednesday’s Nintendo Direct was jam-packed with pleasant surprises, from a Super Mario RPG remake to the return of Detective Pikachu. Another standout announcement was a new Mario game, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which looks like a fun and trippy take on the usual 2D platformer formula. The trailer showed Mario and the gang going on adventures, and at the end of the trailer, Nintendo gave us a sneak peek at a new, goofy-looking fruit that turns Mario into an elephant. Elephant Mario is still recognizably Mario. He’s bipedal, bright-eyed, and keeps his usual mustache, cap, and overalls. (His shoes, however, are gone; presumably, they don’t fit his new elephant feet.) [...] Nintendo didn’t reveal any details about Hollow Knight: Silksong, Metroid Prime 4, or post-release content for Tears of the Kingdom. [via: Polygon]
posted by Fizz at 6:29 AM PST - 32 comments

Happy Pride Month! I was surprised to learn that Kara Jackson is not only a raw, inventive young musician [Kara Jackson Uses Rage, Channels Brandy, Ponders The Human Predicament On Astonishing New LP, Country Queer], but she was a 2019 National Youth Poet Laureate. The Poetry Vlog interviewed her in 2019 about where she was then. [31m] She talked to Kyle Meredith recently about where she is now. [23m] Her recently released album, Why Does The Earth Give Us People To Love? [YT playlist] is an emotional dreamscape full of searching.
posted by hippybear at 5:42 AM PST - 1 comments

Because it turns out transition isn’t the answer for everyone — to suggest otherwise is narrow-minded and proscriptive. I am nine years old. I am learning the rules, and I am learning that boys liking girl things is a very high stakes issue. I am learning that adults react the same way to my interest in makeup as they do to my interest in matches and lighters. As if maybe, by being what I am, I might burn down something very important to them. Something that makes their life more comfortable and easy. [more inside]
posted by Bottlecap at 2:09 AM PST - 49 comments

Between 1948 and 1996, about 16,500 people were operated on without their consent under a eugenics law, triggering long campaign for redress
posted by brundlefly at 1:04 AM PST - 2 comments