Here's a video that took the Ken Burns Civil War documentary and remorselessly smooshed in a much E.T. as it could handle. Dear god it's so stupid and wonderful. Bravo.

Our friends at Cracked are back at it again with a fresh installment to their weekly video series, "Your Brain On Cracked." This one's just too much fun. 

This guy got challenged to make music with bricks, so he went ahead and played The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights" with bricks. Um, that's amazing. Had no idea that was possible. 

Work in any field long enough and you'll see your fair share of wonderfully unprofessional "not my job" moments. There's slides that go right off buildings, misspelled signs and extremely lazy line painting, just to name a few. It makes you feel good about yourself to see people's majestically incompetent "not my job" moments.

Almost 14 years ago to the day, Reese Butler, the founder of HopeLine, asked me if I thought the PostSecret community could raise enough money to prevent the nation’s suicide prevention hotline from closing. The crisis-line needed over $25,000 to continue its mission. I posted a plea on this website and one week later over […]

This week is a bit scattered, but it’s SCATTERED AWESOME, so who are we to complain? We’ve got some great book deals, delightful new art, and some behind-the-scenes photos for the making of the trailer! April Fool’s Redux Last week’s prank of a re-release of the Peace Talks trailer with “improved” visual effects was ridiculously [...]

via http://www.flickr.com/photos/taffeta/2463140032/

via http://www.flickr.com/photos/sixbyten/3026779821/sizes/l/

via http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_carl/2342040541/in/set-72157604144345854/

Taking deep breaths and forcing a cough can help clear mucus, but these techniques are unlikely to prevent or treat coronavirus infections – here’s why

Strange orbits of distant space rocks have been used to infer that the solar system has an unseen ninth planet, but those orbits may be less strange than we thought, meaning there is no need for a new planet

Artificial intelligence can tell whether a human or a bot is posting on Twitter based on how regularly they post and how much they reply to others, which could help identify fake accounts

Getting less sleep for five nights in a row can make you view other people’s expressions more negatively, including facial reactions seen over video calls

A long-standing hypothesis suggests the BCG vaccine also serves to generally enhance the immune system, meaning it could protect against covid-19, and trials are under way to find out

Robots made of 3D-printed muscle and rat spines could help us understand conditions like motor neurone disease and the technique may eventually be used to build prosthetic devices

It can be difficult for doctors to assess the level of consciousness in people who have had serious brain injuries, but observing their reaction to strong odours may help

A robot that uses artificial intelligence to find and remove weeds could eventually be used as an alternative to chemical insecticides

As many as 86 per cent of people meet the criteria for a psychiatric diagnosis by middle age – and in many cases, a different diagnosis at some other time

Weird blasts of radio waves from space called fast radio bursts have been baffling astronomers since they were discovered, but after finding one in our galaxy we may finally know what creates them

Mouse neurons trapped inside cages grow long appendages to connect to each other. Trapping the cells allows us to precisely control their growth

Global warming has already made parts of the world – including cities in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates – hotter than the human body can withstand

A university professor filed suit against his institution because it chastised him for inappropriate sexual behavior. He wasn’t fired, they just tut-tutted, put a black mark on his record, and told him not to do that anymore. He sued anyway, for his ego. During a class in 2013, a psychology professor at George Mason University […]

Currently making the rounds: I was suspicious, though. It’s too good to be true. So I snooped about, and found the original on the ADL website. OK, now, really — who thought they needed to edit the original sign to make it less evil and more obviously stupid? That was a waste of effort. Just […]

This batch of hearts from Ron Lehocky has an energy that I can’t quite explain. They buzz and vibrate in an unusual way. We’ve got a Skinner blend base with a layer of opposing Skinner blend slices that are accompanied by depressed dots. Up/down, in/out over shifting colors.  My impulse is to fondle these delicious […] Read more

New York has released more details into who has tested positive for the coronavirus in the state, and Governor Andrew Cuomo said the per cent of healthcare workers with Covid-19 is not higher than the general public.“That is amazingly good news,” Mr Cuomo said during his press briefing on Thursday.

Contrary to popular belief, people do order fish sandwiches at Arby's.Senate Democrats recently learned one of their own is among that rare crowd when Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) forgot to hit mute when driving through an Arby's drive-through last month. Manchin pulled up to the fast food spot in his home state, asked for a King’s Hawaiian Fish Deluxe sandwich, and later learned his mistake after staffers texted him, he tells The Wall Street Journal."It's a big piece of fish and it has a big slice of cheese," Manchin described to the Journal. "They were just jealous they weren't getting the good sandwich." Manchin himself may be jealous that unlike West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, he doesn't have a sandwich named after him at his local Arby's.Manchin is far from the only lawmaker who's been "busted," as he put it, for forgetting to hit mute. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) says his children have repeatedly walked by and told him to "tell [House] Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi to say now is the time to start forgiving student loans." Several described overhearing "colleagues exercising on ellipticals, doing sit-ups, dealing with children, or taking other phone calls," they tell the Journal. And many of them have admittedly skipped showers on days they know they don't have to be on camera. Read more about congressmembers' at-home habits at The Wall Street Journal.More stories from theweek.com The full-spectrum failure of the Trump revolution Unemployment is a catastrophe — but it could still be worse Trump reportedly got 'lava level mad' over potential exposure to coronavirus

Experts still aren't sure why some coronavirus cases are so much worse than others, but the answer may lie in patients' genetic differences.

California Governor Gavin Newsom announced Friday that he had signed an executive order to mail ballots to the state’s 20.6 million registered voters, citing potential health risks due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.“There’s a lot of excitement around this November’s election in terms of making sure that you can conduct yourself in a safe way, and make sure your health is protected,” Newsom said Friday. In March, the state allowed ballots to be mailed in for its primary, which saw a record-high of 72 percent of all ballots that were cast by mail.California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who heads the state’s elections, commended the move “It’s great for public health, it’s great for voting rights, it’s going to be great for participation,” he said. California already allows for generous absentee voting, passing a 2002 decision which gives voters the option to request permanent voting by mail, regardless of the reason.While Newsom’s decision applies only to the November election, it could set a precedent for other Democratic states, with voting by mail quickly becoming a partisan issue. It comes after the state’s lawmakers and local officials requested the measure, saying coronavirus will severely hamper voting efforts, a complaint echoed by prominent Democrats.“Why should we be saying to people, ‘Stand in line for hours,’ when we don’t even want you leaving the house?” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in April. But President Trump has repeatedly slammed calls for mail-in voting, saying last month that it lets “people cheat” and involves “a lot of dishonesty.”Newsom said that his order would still allow an “appropriate number” of in-person voting sites, saying that some voters, including those that are disabled, require technological help to cast a ballot.

A pulmonary blood clot killed the brother of an Idaho woman who’s facing charges in the disappearance of her children — a case that attracted worldwide attention with revelations of her doomsday beliefs and connection to three mysterious deaths. Autopsy and toxicology reports were released Friday for Alex Cox, who died in Arizona in December. In July, Cox fatally shot his sister’s estranged husband, Charles Vallow, in what he said was self-defense.

An Indianapolis man was fatally shot by police after a high-speed chase in an incident that appeared to have been broadcast on Facebook Live, sparking outcry and protests throughout the night.More than 100 people from the community gathered at the scene of the shooting to express their outrage Wednesday night, chanting “No justice, no peace!” as they demanded answers from police about the latest officer-involved death. Protestors continued demonstrating Thursday, with dozens marching through the streets before congregating outside of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department headquarters. “We deserve better,” one community activist told The Indianapolis Star. “I am disgusted, horrified, tired, and angry.”‘You’re Gonna Kill Me’: Body-Cam Footage Shows Cops Mocking Dallas Man as He DiesThe Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said the incident began around 6 p.m. when officers began pursuing a man who they observed to be driving recklessly. After the driver exited the car, an officer chased him on foot before gunfire was “exchanged” at around 6:14 p.m., police said in a press release, without revealing who fired first. In the unconfirmed Facebook video of the incident, at least 13 or 14 gunshots can be heard. In another video obtained by The Indianapolis Star, a detective who arrived after the shooting can be heard saying: “Looks like it’s going to be a closed casket, homie.” “We are aware of inappropriate comments made by an IMPD detective” on the live stream, Indianapolis MPD Chief Randal Taylor said at a Thursday press conference. “Let me be clear: These comments are unacceptable and unbecoming of our police department.” While Taylor did not confirm the authenticity of the Facebook live stream, he did stress he was “concerned with the things on social media,” stating he thinks that some comments online “lack trust as to what occurred.” Authorities have not yet identified the name of the driver but said he and the officer who shot him were both black men. Family members identified the driver to local media outlets as 21-year-old Dreasjon “Sean” Reed. The officer who fired the fatal shot has been placed on administrative leave pending further investigation.“I feel like to lose a life, especially at a young age, there’s never going to be justice,” Jazmine Reed, the 21-year-old’s sister, told WISH, adding that her family watched the pursuit and shooting on Facebook as it happened. “Cause he’s gone—there’s never justice for that. Even if somebody was to get time or whatever for it, it’s never going to be justice because he’s never coming back.” The sister said she drove to the scene after watching the video, not knowing whether her brother was still alive. “I shouldn’t have to bury my little brother,” she added.The Indianapolis MPD said the incident began after two officers saw a Toyota Corolla being driven “recklessly.” They followed the driver in unmarked cars and asked for assistance as they said the vehicle continued “at a high rate of speed” and the operator was “disobeying all traffic signals” and nearly hit another car. In the Facebook video, titled “High-speed case lol,” Reed, who is shirtless, appears nervous as he speaks to his 2,000 viewers and points his camera to show the moving police cars behind him.“Almost lost him y’all!” he says. “Almost got rid of his ass!”Video Shows Florida Deputy Violently Yanking Middle Schooler’s Hair During ArrestAt one point, he appears to pull over and stop his car. Authorities say the driver disregarded “the officers’ verbal commands to stop” and ran out of the car, prompting an officer to chase him on foot.“I’m on 62nd and Michigan,” Reed says in the video, just before exiting the vehicle. “I just parked... I’m gone.” He added: “Please come get me! Please come get me! Please come get me!”Reed can then be heard running for approximately 30 seconds, as a voice behind him yells: “Stop! Stop!”“Fuck you,” Reed replies. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Chief Chris Bailey said during a Wednesday news conference that the officer first used his taser, but it’s unclear if it worked and is not seen on the purported video from the scene.“It is believed at this time that shots were fired by both the officer and the suspect,” Bailey said.In the video, Reed appears to start screaming before collapsing on the ground. About eight seconds later, 11 or 12 gunshots can be heard in rapid succession. The live stream did not show Reed talking about a gun or firing a weapon. After a brief pause, two more shots can be heard as the camera faces the sky while the opening lyrics of Young Dolph’s “16 Zips” appears to be playing off the phone. By the end of the gunfire, more than 4,000 people had tuned in to watch the live stream, according to the Star.Bailey said Indianapolis Emergency Medical Services arrived shortly after and pronounced the driver dead at the scene. The officer was uninjured.Taylor on Thursday stated that a “loaded gun” was recovered at the scene that appeared to have been fired twice and that it belonged to the driver. He added that disciplinary action will be taken against the detective who made the “casket” comment.After the incident, the Facebook Live video, which has been widely shared on social media, was removed from the victim’s account, Bailey said. Bailey added that authorities are aware of Facebook videos.Cop Charged With Assault After Video Shows Him Slamming Suspect’s Head Into Pavement“Both the officers and the detectives have done their due diligence in preserving that evidence through the proper legal channels, and if it’s associated that there’s information on there that’s appropriate for the investigation, they’ll utilize it,” he said.Taylor added Thursday the police officers involved in the shooting were not wearing body cameras, but he has no reason to believe they acted inappropriately. But after the press conference, dozens of protesters took to the streets demanding more police action, shouting “all lives matter,” as drivers stopped their cars and put their fists out their windows in solidarity.About eight hours after that shooting, Indianapolis police fatally shot another man during an investigation into a burglary at an apartment complex. Authorities said that around 1:30 a.m. Thursday, four officers responded to the apartment and were immediately fired upon by a man with a rifle. All four officers “returned fire” and hit the man, who was pronounced dead at the scene, police said in a news release. In response to both incidents, Taylor stressed at a Thursday press conference that he will provide residents with “the truth whether we are right or wrong.”“We have long talked about the kind of police department we want to be—one that serves with the community, that's not policed at—a police department that is trusted, one where every resident feels a comfortable calling,” Taylor said. “We recognize and are saddened that this mutual trust that is so valued has been eroded over the last 24 hours.”Investigators are now conducting a separate investigation into that shooting, and police said there’s evidence the victim called 911 with the intent of ambushing the responding officers. “Our hearts this morning are with the families who lost loved ones during these tragic events. All of us are trying to make a new normal in an un-normal time. Incidents like these do not help restore normalcy to our community,” Chrystal Ratcliffe, the president of the NAACP branch in Indianapolis said in a statement.The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on Thursday called for a “prompt, thorough, and transparent investigation” into Reed’s death.“Whether someone is unarmed or armed, compliant or resistant, police officers should be properly trained in de-escalation tactics and turn to the use of force only as a last resort, not a first option,” the statement read. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

The wild plot involved faking his own death, stealing the identity of a Florida attorney, using an app to disguise his voice, and pretending to have prostate cancer, bone cancer, and a brain aneurysm.Unemployed Virginia man Russell Louis Geyer was so determined to hide his assets in bankruptcy proceedings, he even threw his own wife under the bus—duping her into handing over $70,000 and using her email address to inform an attorney he was dead. Geyer, 50, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to contempt of court, bankruptcy fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity fraud. He faces up to life in prison.“In an effort to game the bankruptcy system, Mr. Geyer devised a made-for-TV plot that ultimately collapsed under its own weight,” U.S. Attorney Thomas Cullen said in a statement.Minnesota Man Killed Wife, Buried Her Under Home, Then Faked Her Disappearance: Court DocsGeyer and his wife, Patricia Sue Geyer, from Saltville, filed for voluntary bankruptcy in late 2018, listing liabilities of $532,583.80, according to court documents.They were behind on payments for three of their four vehicles, for both their home and a rental property they owned, and for most of their furniture. They hadn’t paid electricity bills, bank overdrafts, credit card bills, and dozens of medical bills, and more than 50 creditors were chasing them for everything from their 65-inch TV to their Kawasaki ZX1000 motorbike. At one point in the bankruptcy proceedings, Geyer told his lawyer, John Lamie, he’d gone to the Mayo Clinic in Florida to be treated for prostate cancer, but it had spread to his bones and he intended to stop treatment.Four months later, according to a criminal complaint, he told Lamie he was now in a hospice in Florida after treatment failed. He said his wife was there, too, and had undergone bypass surgery for a heart condition. She wasn’t cleared to drive back to Virginia, he claimed.Then, a few days before September 5, 2019, when Geyer was due to appear in person at a bankruptcy hearing, Lamie received an email from Geyer’s wife. Her husband was dead, it said. He’d apparently had a brain aneurysm in June while being transported back from Florida after his chemotherapy treatments.Around the same time, Geyer’s attorney got a threatening email from an attorney in Florida who said he’d sold the assets that debtors were trying to recover in the bankruptcy case. “[Patricia] doesn’t know anything about this, and neither does Russell,” the email said. “I have complete control of Russell and told him to kill himself. You will not find him in time.” He ended the email by saying: “I am on a plane out of the country.”However, investigators later found that the Florida attorney whose name was used in the email existed but had nothing to do with the case. Geyer had simply set up a bogus email account using his name.‘Please Come Get Me’: Fatal Indianapolis Police Shooting May Have Aired on Facebook He even used the attorney’s identity to fleece his wife, a registered nurse who earned $3,200 a month, for $70,000. Geyer told his wife he’d won a $1 million settlement in Florida in an unrelated court case but needed her to pay $70,000 in legal fees for the money to be released. He used the bogus email address and an app that disguised his voice to pose as the Florida attorney and confirm the settlement was imminent. “It was all untrue,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia said in a statement on Thursday.The plot unraveled on Sept. 4, the day before the bankruptcy hearing, when a process server visited the couple’s Saltville home to give them a notice to appear.The home was empty but, just as the process server was leaving, Geyer and his wife arrived home in their car and got out—far from the Florida hospice he had claimed to be languishing in. The next day, Patricia Geyer, who said she’d largely let her husband deal with the bankruptcy case, left home to attend the court hearing about an hour after her husband. He never showed up.She told the court she had no idea about her husband’s wild story. She said they hadn’t been in Florida recently, she hadn’t had bypass surgery, and her husband didn’t have cancer. The first time she’d heard of her husband’s supposed death was two days earlier, when Lamie called her to say he’d heard about Geyer’s passing.“A few days ago, [Lamie] called me at work,” she said under cross-examination in court. “I got a message to call him. So I immediately called him and then he told me all this stuff about Russell being dead and all that. It just floored me, so I had no clue.”“Where’s Mr. Geyer now?” a judge asked her.“I couldn’t tell you, because he left the house this morning an hour, hour before me. And he was supposed to come down here and be here at 10:30, and then when I ended up here, he wasn't here. So I don’t know.” After that day in court, she only ever received text messages from Geyer saying he was in a hospital in West Virginia following a suicide attempt. Geyer was tracked down two weeks later and charged with criminal offenses. He underwent a psychiatric evaluation as part of the criminal case but was found to be competent to stand trial.“Despite its complexity and shameless use of deceit, including against his own wife, Mr. Geyer’s scheme failed to account for the FBI’s and the US Attorney’s office’s commitment to protect both fraud victims and our judicial system,” FBI Special Agent David W. Archey said.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Are dentists open for emergency care, and other questions answered by BBC experts.

Both sides are desperate for a speedy agreement, but there are clear sticking points.

The Foreign Secretary says the prime minister will outline what steps the UK "can responsibly take over the following weeks."

The brother of Harry Dunn, who died outside a US airforce base, urges Boris Johnson to take up the case.

The Irish deputy PM says time is short to reach a trade deal this year, with much still to do.

The historic move will be temporary to cope with the coronavirus pandemic, says Commons speaker.

The PM will set out a "cautious" road map for the UK in his speech on Sunday, a cabinet minister says.