Oil Smuggling Finances Islamic State’s New Caliphate

Crazy stuff from around the world. It's Friday and I'm tired. If that's not to your liking, here's some crazy cats. Open thread below read more

The Rockies, oh so desperately needed someone to make a big splash. Two players delivered Friday night — one of them literally — in the Rockies’ 3-2 win over the Pirates at PNC Park. Ryan McMahon led off the Rockies’ three-run sixth inning with a 445-foot homer that splashed down in the Allegheny River.

The Eta Aquarids meteor shower, which occurs each year as the Earth passes through remnants of Halley’s comet, is expected to reach its peak this weekend. Watchers can expect to see hundreds of meteors fill the sky in the pre-dawn hours. With the moon at a waning crescent, the show is expected to be even more vibrant than usual.

Chants of “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest” are reverberating across the globe as student-led protests in support of Palestine have popped up outside the U. S. and in countries like Australia, Mexico, and the U. K. as the Israel-Hamas war enters into its seventh month.

The best Taylor Swift needle drops will make you think about her music a little differently. A show like You might play with tone, turning an emotional ballad into comic relief, while The Buccaneers might help christen a new Swiftie classic with one pivotal scene. Some music syncs feel so seamless you may start to believe they were written specifically for a movie, while others, like Swift’s Valentine’s Day sweetheart anthem “Today Was a Fairytale,” actually was.

In a fast-food culture, there may be few things better for your health than making a simple home-cooked meal. But while the meal itself may be a good idea, the cooking part can be a problem—at least if you own a natural gas or propane stove. That’s the conclusion of a new study in Science Advances, showing that dangerous levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are emitted by both kinds of stoves. The findings are a result of new work conducted at Stanford University by environmental scientist Rob Jackson and graduate researcher Yannai Kashtan.