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Today's featured article

Hernan intensifying off Mexico

Tropical Storm Hernan was a short-lived tropical cyclone that caused widespread flooding and destructive mudslides across southwestern Mexico in late August 2020. The eighth named storm of the 2020 Pacific hurricane season, Hernan formed to the southwest of Mexico on August 26. The cyclone peaked with maximum sustained winds of 70 km/h (45 mph) and a minimum atmospheric pressure of 1001 mbar (hPa; 29.56 inHg) before passing just offshore western Mexico and dissipating in the Gulf of California. Despite not making landfall, Hernan dropped extremely heavy rainfall across several states, peaking at nearly 610 mm (24 in) in Jalisco. More than 305 mm (12 in) of rain fell across the Costa Grande of Guerrero from August 24 to 27. A total of 1,674 homes and 9 schools suffered severe damage. A man died after falling off his roof while checking for storm damage. The cyclone caused MXN$594.05 million (USD$26.91 million) in damage across seven states along the Pacific coast of Mexico. (Full article...)

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In the news

Robert Fico

Protests over voting rights changes break out in New Caledonia, a territory of France in the Pacific.
Robert Fico (pictured), the prime minister of Slovakia, is hospitalised after an assassination attempt.
Lee Hsien Loong steps down after nearly 20 years as the prime minister of Singapore, and is succeeded by Lawrence Wong.
Switzerland, represented by Nemo with "The Code", wins the Eurovision Song Contest.
A series of solar storms impact Earth, creating aurorae seen farther from the poles than usual.

Did you know?

Death camas miner bee on a death camas flower

... that the nectar and pollen of the meadow death camas and its relatives are so toxic that no bee except the death camas miner bee (pictured on flower) can eat them?
... that according to Dadang Supriatna, his father gave him 1,000 bricks to fund his studies?
... that sulfate pollution causes cooling through global dimming, which is comparable to warming from methane?
... that a priest refused to perform the wedding ceremony for Austrian socialist Josef Peskoller and his fiancée Maria Griel on political grounds in 1928?
... that data breaches are rarely detected by the compromised organization?
... that Puerto Rican singer Young Miko composed "Classy 101" in Los Angeles and had never met Colombian singer Feid before he recorded the song with her?
... that Fang Gan failed the imperial examination more than ten times, apparently because of his cleft lip?
... that ice in outer space is an amorphous solid, and this may be the most common phase of ice in the universe?
... that Butt Drugs in Corydon, Indiana, had Butt Liquors and free parking in the rear?

On this day...

May 18: Haitian Flag Day in Haiti (1803); Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Crimean Tatar Genocide in Ukraine

The Bath School after the explosions

1302 – Armed insurrectionists massacred the occupying French garrison in Bruges, Flanders, killing approximately 2,000 people.
1695 – An earthquake measuring M_s7.8 struck Shanxi Province in northern China, resulting in at least 52,600 deaths.
1927 – Disgruntled school board treasurer Andrew Kehoe set off explosives with timers and a rifle (aftermath pictured), causing the Bath School disaster in the Bath Consolidated School in Michigan, killing 44 people in the deadliest mass murder in a school in United States history.
2009 – The Sri Lanka Army killed Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader and founder of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, to bring an end to the 26-year Sri Lankan Civil War.

Thomas Midgley Jr. (b. 1889)
Ester Boserup (b. 1910)
Jean-François Théodore (d. 2015)

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Today's featured picture

Sea urchins are a group of spiny globular echinoderms which form the class Echinoidea. About 950 species live on the seabed, inhabiting all oceans and depth zones from the intertidal to 5,000 metres (16,000 feet; 2,700 fathoms). Their tests (hard shells) are round and spiny, typically from 3 to 10 centimetres (1 to 4 inches) across. Sea urchins move slowly, crawling with their tube feet, and sometimes pushing themselves with their spines. They feed primarily on algae but also eat slow-moving or sessile animals. Their predators include sea otters, starfish, wolf eels, and triggerfish. This photograph, taken off the northern coast of Haiti near Cap-Haïtien, shows two species of sea urchin: a West Indian sea egg (top) and a reef urchin (bottom).