OFF TO CUBA!!!

Pope Francis begins a 10-day trip to Cuba and the United States on Saturday, embarking on his first trip to the onetime Cold War foes after helping to nudge forward their historic rapprochement. He will be offering a show of solidarity with Cubans and making clear that Hispanics in the United States are the bedrock of the American church.

Before There Was Misty Copeland, There Was Raven Wilkinson

Misty Copeland made history when she became the first African-American woman to be named principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre. She was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2015 and has inspired many young African-American girls, thus becoming a cultural icon.

But even icons have trailblazers.

American Toddler May Be Youngest Ever To Have Type 2 Diabetes

A three-year-old American girl has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes — a condition linked to obesity — making her one of the youngest people ever detected with the disease.

87 Deceased NFL Players Test Positive for Brain Disease

A total of 87 out of 91 former NFL players have tested positive for the brain disease at the center of the debate over concussions in football, according to new figures from the nation’s largest brain bank focused on the study of traumatic head injury.

Elephants Shot With Arrows Travel To Humans For Help

Last month, a wild elephant and two of his friends were attacked by poachers. Wounded by poisoned arrows, they trudged across the African landscape to the one place that could help them: the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (DSWT).

Sand Octopus Turns its Body into a Squirt Gun to Burrow

In another episode of “Cephalopods are Basically the Most Amazing Creatures on Earth,” today we get an inside look at the burrowing habits of the southern sand octopus, the pressurized hose of the animal kingdom.

Google’s codebase is ludicrously huge for good reason

Google’s codebase — the programming instructions that run every one of its services from Gmail to Slides — span a whopping 2 billion lines of code that stretch across 1 billion files and require 86 terabytes of storage, according to Google engineering manager Rachel Potvin. She recently disclosed those figures at the @Scale engineering conference. She also noted that this massive collection of data is mirrored and continually updated in ten data centers peppered around the globe. “Not only is the size of the repository increasing,” Potvin explained during her lecture, “but the rate of change is also increasing. This is an exponential curve.”

Lupe Fiasco – AUTOBOTO

Benny The Butcher – Bust A Brick Nick

Tory Lanez – Mucky James

Lupe Fiasco – 100 Chicagos

Sauce Walka – “Mirror Effect”

21 Savage – “No Debate” / “Big Smoke”

Flamingo at the Cincinnati Zoo

Mt. Gang Rinpoche (Tibet)

Smithsonian.com

Morning Hour

The first one

POLAR BEAR ON ICEBERG

Ibis Fight