Update (Dec. 27): Although Pixar’s Bao is no longer available to watch online, Weekends is now available, so you can still watch eight of the ten shorts for free.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its shortlists for several Oscar categories last week, including best documentary, best foreign language film, and best original song. The academy also revealed the 10 animated short films still in the running, and eight of them are available to watch online for free.
The overwhelming frontrunner is Disney-Pixar’s Bao, an eight-minute short that played before Incredibles II in June and is about an empty-nester who’s overjoyed when her aggressively cute dumpling magically comes to life. Written and directed by Chinese-Canadian storyboard artist Domee Shi, Bao is the first Pixar short directed by a woman in the company’s 32-year history. Pixar last won the award in 2016 with the short film Piper.
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From an animated short film
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On day three of Lowell Cauffiel’s final detox from alcohol, a giant rabbit in a tuxedo and top hat tapped on the window of his second-floor bedroom.
Cauffiel, a bestselling true crime author, Hollywood screenwriter and producer purposely didn’t go to rehab 34 years ago. When he abruptly stopped drinking two fifths of bourbon a day, he wanted to experience the full effect of withdrawal.
The week-long process started with the feeling that his “guts were being pulled out.” He shook. He sweat. He suffered some very vivid hallucinations.
In 2019, the autumnal equinox—also called the September equinox—will arrive on September 23 in North America. Wondering why it’s called an equinox?
Autumn has caught us in our summer wear. –Philip Larkin, British poet (1922–86)
When is the Autumnal Equinox?
Although the equinox happens at the same moment worldwide, your clock times will depend on your time zone.
Year
Autumnal Equinox (Northern Hemisphere)
2018
Saturday, September 22
2019
Monday, September 23
2020
Tuesday, September 22
What is the Autumnal Equinox?
Autumn days come quickly, like the running of a hound on the moor. –Irish proverb
The autumnal equinox—also called the September or fall equinox—is the astronomical start of fall in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere.
Why is it called an equinox? The word comes from the Latin aequus, meaning “equal” and nox, meaning “night.”
During the equinox, the Sun crosses what we call the “celestial equator.” Imagine a line that marks the equator on Earth extending up into the sky above the equator from north to south. Earth’s two hemispheres receive the Sun’s rays about equally. The Sun is overhead at noon as seen from the equator, so at this point, the amount of nighttime and daytime (sunlight) are roughly equal to each other.
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Pixabay
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Kira Johnson’s presence is everywhere in her two young sons’ lives. Poster-sized pictures of her fill their house. They regularly watch home videos of her. And their father, Kira’s husband Charles Johnson IV, brings her sense of adventure and determination into everything they do as a family.
“I try to do Kira-style, like Mommy would do it,” Johnson said. “My mantra is just wake up and make Mommy proud.”
And while Johnson loves to talk about Kira with his sons, 4-year-old Charles Johnson V and 2-year-old Langston, there are some questions they ask about their mother — who died hours after giving birth to Langston — that he struggles to answer.
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Kira Johnson, 39, died hours after giving birth to her son, Langston, in what her husband, Charles Johnson IV, describes as a death that hospital staff could have prevented. “This was not just a medical tragedy” he said. “This was a medical catastrophe.”Courtesy of Charles Johnson IV
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The valley was unspeakably beautiful: honey-colored hills flanked by mountains covered in pine trees. Dark shrubs dotted the expanse, as did wandering cows, temples and clusters of 108 white Buddhist prayer flags. Relatives of the dead plant the flags — thin strips of fabric that run the length of tall poles — during the 49 days it takes to guide and protect the soul as it moves toward the next life.
Every time I’d see those flutterings of white, I thought of the effort and devotion that had gone into covering this landscape in so many acts of love.
My energy levels were close to empty when I arrived in Bhutan’s Phobjikha Valley, far enough east from the only international airport in this lush, underdeveloped Himalayan kingdom that it had taken many, many hours of driving to get to.
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From top right: A farmer and her child on the road to Punakha Dzong; prayer wheels at the ancient Jowo Temple of Kyichu in Paro; the Great Buddha Dordenma statue overlooking Thimphu; view of Tiger’s Nest Monastery.CreditJada Yuan/The New York Times
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All of us want to be smarter than we already are. So, many of us devote ourselves to a lifelong quest to learn more and expand our minds. Whether we’re reading the newspaper, picking up a new book, watching documentaries or learning a new skill by watching YouTube videos, our underlying purpose is generally to become smarter individuals.
But sometimes what we think we’ve learned just doesn’t stick. We might think we’re masters at a subject, only to realize we’ve forgotten everything we’ve learned. Other times, the distractions in our everyday lives make it difficult to absorb any new information at all. So, how can we become smarter about learning and become better at it, too? How do we train our brains to work better?
The answer is that there are ways to do that. Check out these four brain hacks — vetted by research — to make us smarter.
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Image credit: Roy Scott | Getty Images
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Dream lucidity is the awareness that you are dreaming.This awareness can range from a faint recognition of the fact to a momentous broadening of perspective. Lucid dreams usually occur while a person is in the middle of a normal dream and suddenly realizes that they are dreaming. This is called a dream-initiated lucid dream. A wake-initiated lucid dream occurs when you go from a normal waking state directly into a dream state, with no apparent lapse in consciousness. In either case, the dreams tend to be more bizarre and emotional than regular dreams. Most importantly, you will have at least some ability to control your “dream self” and the surrounding dream.
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Keep a dream journal
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Senior American officials were worried. Since the early months of the Trump administration, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and Middle East adviser, had been having private, informal conversations with Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the favorite son of Saudi Arabia’s king.
Given Mr. Kushner’s political inexperience, the private exchanges could make him susceptible to Saudi manipulation, said three former senior American officials. In an effort to tighten practices at the White House, a new chief of staff tried to reimpose longstanding procedures stipulating that National Security Council staff members should participate in all calls with foreign leaders.
But even with the restrictions in place, Mr. Kushner, 37, and Prince Mohammed, 33, kept chatting, according to three former White House officials and two others briefed by the Saudi royal court. In fact, they said, the two men were on a first-name basis, calling each other Jared and Mohammed in text messages and phone calls.
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Prince Mohammed bin Salman with Jared Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, in Riyadh last year.CreditCreditJonathan Ernst/Reuters
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Sixteen months after swastika-toting white supremacists swarmed the streets of Charlottesville, one of the demonstrators was convicted of first-degree murder Friday by a jury that found he intentionally drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one woman and injuring nearly 40 others.
James Fields Jr., 21, faces up to life in prison for the death of Heather Heyer, 32, in a case that has stirred soul-searching in a city that prides itself on being a liberal bastion. Mr. Fields, who traveled from Ohio to attend the Unite the Right rally, was also convicted of nine other charges, including aggravated malicious wounding and leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
Friday’s verdict was cheered by those fighting racial and religious hatred and provided some closure in a case that cast a national spotlight on Charlottesville, the scene chosen by racists and anti-Semites to rally for their cause, near a Confederate monument that some city leaders were trying to remove.
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James Fields Jr. drove into a crowd of counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017, killing one woman and injuring several other people.CreditCreditAlbemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, via Associated Press
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A bipartisan group of political figures appealed to Gov. Scott Walker on Thursday to avoid staining his legacy and behaving like a sore loser by signing legislation that would weaken the powers of the Democrat who defeated him.
Rather than notching another partisan victory in his final weeks in office, they said, Walker should think bigger. Think of your recently deceased father, they pleaded. Think of former President George H.W. Bush. Think of Christ.
“You can have a long, successful career ahead,” longtime Republican and major GOP donor Sheldon Lubar wrote to Walker in a deeply personal email. “Don’t stain it by this personal, poor-loser action. Ask yourself, what would my father say, what would the greatest man who ever lived, Jesus Christ, say.”
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Protesters Peppi Elder, left, and Christine Taylor holds up signs during the state Christmas Tree lighting ceremony in state Capitol Rotunda Tuesday Dec. 4, 2018, in Madison, Wis. The Senate and Assembly are set to send dozens of changes in state law to Gov. Scott Walker’s desk. (Steve Apps)
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Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
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Image credit: Roy Scott | Getty Images
James' World 2 