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From today's featured article

Nathan Chen, winner of the men's event

The 2021 World Figure Skating Championships were held from March 22 to 28, 2021, at the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, Sweden. Sanctioned by the International Skating Union, the World Championships are considered the most prestigious event in figure skating. Medals were awarded in men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance. The competition determined the entry quotas for each skating federation at the 2022 World Championships and was the first qualifying event for the 2022 Winter Olympics. The World Championships were the only ISU Championship event held during the 2020–21 season, while other competitions were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event was held without spectators. Nathan Chen (pictured) of the United States won the men's event, Anna Shcherbakova of Russia won the women's event, Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov of Russia won the pairs event, and Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov of Russia won the ice dance event. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

The Accidental Burning of the USS Missouri in Gibraltar

... that the only casualty of USS Missouri's destruction (pictured) was a pet bear?
... that Lourdes Ambriz, singing voice of Belle in the Spanish version of Beauty and the Beast, became the artistic director of the Mexican national opera?
... that numerous historians and academics have argued that Israel has used the Holocaust to justify its treatment of Palestinians?
... that Riho Furui wrote her debut song after struggling with life in Canada?
... that professional sumo fighting stables are often housed in Shinto shrines when they travel outside of Tokyo?
... that the son of Mary Fortune – one of the earliest female writers of detective fiction – was a career criminal?
... that Diane Orr and C. Larry Roberts were once said to "epitomize the regional, independent filmmaker"?
... that in 2010 journalist Jonathan Capehart fell for a satirical tweet made by a fictional U.S. congressman, then wrote a lengthy response in The Washington Post?
... that the musical duo Braxe + Falcon formed a supergroup with the band Phoenix to make music about UFOs?

In the news

José Jerí

José Jerí (pictured) is sworn in as President of Peru after Dina Boluarte is removed from office by the Congress.
María Corina Machado is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her pro-democracy activism in Venezuela.
László Krasznahorkai is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John M. Martinis for their work on macroscopic quantum phenomena.

On this day

October 12

Inejirō Asanuma

1406 – Chen Yanxiang, the only person from Indonesia known to have visited dynastic Korea, reached Seoul after having set out from Java four months before.
1798 – The Peasants' War began in Overmere, Southern Netherlands, with peasants taking up arms against the French occupiers.
1917 – First World War: New Zealand troops suffered more than 2,000 casualties, including more than 800 deaths, in the First Battle of Passchendaele, making it the nation's largest loss of life in one day.
1960 – Japan Socialist Party leader Inejirō Asanuma (pictured) was assassinated during a live television recording by a far-right ultra-nationalist using a short sword.
1979 – Typhoon Tip, the largest and most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded, reached a worldwide record-low sea-level pressure of 870 mbar (25.69 inHg) in the western Pacific Ocean.

Pope Honorius I (d. 638)
Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth (d. 1758)
Kamini Roy (b. 1864)
Gilbert Parkhouse (b. 1925)

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Today's featured picture

The little owl (Athene noctua) is a bird in the family Strigidae, the true owls. It inhabits much of the temperate and warmer parts of Europe, the Palearctic realm east to Korea, and North Africa. The species is mainly nocturnal and is found in a range of habitats, including farmland, woodland fringes, steppes and semi-deserts. It is around 22 centimetres (8.7 inches) long, and cryptically coloured. The little owl typically feeds on insects, earthworms, other invertebrates and small vertebrates. Males hold territories that they defend against intruders. It is a cavity nester, and a clutch of about four eggs is laid in spring. The female does the incubation and the male brings food to the nest, first for the female and later for the newly hatched young. As the chicks grow, both parents hunt and bring them food, and the chicks leave the nest at about seven weeks of age. This little owl was photographed in Zhabaiushkan, a wildlife sanctuary in Mangystau Region, Kazakhstan.

Photograph credit: Maksat Bisengaziev

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