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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Nancy Wilson, an award-winning singer whose beguiling expressiveness in jazz, R&B, gospel, soul and pop made her a crossover recording star for five decades and who also had a prolific career as an actress, activist and commercial spokeswoman, died Dec. 13 at her home in Pioneertown, Calif. She was 81.
Her manager and publicist Devra Hall Levy confirmed the death but did not know the specific cause.
Ms. Wilson resisted the label of “jazz singer” for much of her career, although jazz was the form to which she returned time and again and in which she had her greatest critical and popular success. She considered herself above all “a song stylist,” she once told The Washington Post. “That’s my essence,” she said, “to weave words, to be dramatic.”
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Singer Nancy Wilson performs in 2007. (Rick Maiman/AP)
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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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History may show that Monday ranks among the most consequential days yet of Robert Mueller’s 18-month special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
As George Papadopoulos, one of the most enigmatic characters to emerge in Mueller’s investigation, reported to a Wisconsin prison Monday, a confluence of small developments may indicate that by the time he emerges from Federal Correctional Institute Oxford two weeks from now, we might know far more about the breadth of Russia’s efforts—and the Trump campaign’s ties to them—than we do now.
In fact, as the holiday season begins to unfold, it’s clear that Mueller knows who’s been naughty and who’s been nice.
The 2018 midterm elections are nearly here. On Nov. 6, Americans across the country will cast ballots to decide the fate of Congress, governors races and state legislatures. Registered to vote but not sure where to go? Scroll to your state below to find information on polling locations. (in the following article)
At least 92 people in 29 states have been infected with a strain of multidrug-resistant salmonella after coming into contact with a variety of raw chicken products, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. Twenty-one of the sick patients have been hospitalized, though no deaths have been reported.
The source of the raw chicken is unclear from lab tests, and no single common supplier has been identified. The strain has shown up in samples from a variety of raw chicken products including pet food, chicken pieces, ground pieces and whole chickens. The bacteria have also been found in live chickens. The US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service is monitoring the outbreak, and the CDC’s investigation is ongoing.
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This particular salmonella strain is resistant to multiple antibiotics, the most common form of treatment.
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.
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
Image credit: Roy Scott | Getty Images
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