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From today's featured article

K. Michelle

"Mindful" is a hip-hop and R&B song by American singer K. Michelle (pictured) from her third studio album More Issues Than Vogue (2016). T-Pain wrote and produced the song. Footage of Michelle recording the song was used in an episode of her reality television series K. Michelle: My Life. "Mindful" was released by Atlantic Records as the album's third single on February 19, 2016. Throughout the track, Michelle raps the lyrics and warns critics to be "mindful" of her. Some reviewers noted that its uptempo production differed from Michelle's previous singles, and she stated that it was one of the first times she recorded a more light-hearted song. Critics praised Michelle's rapping on "Mindful" and called it a highlight of her singles. The song's music video, released on March 10, 2016, portrays Michelle arguing with women in a trailer park, and was described by reviewers as colorful. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

The Ballad of Sophia Constable

... that an eleven-year-old sentenced to three weeks' hard labour for stealing a loaf of bread has a statue commemorating her (pictured)?
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... that astronomers discovered the wide binary system 2001 QW322 while searching for new moons of Uranus?
... that Virginia voters are scheduled to decide in 2026 whether to formally legalize same-sex marriage?
... that Joan Russell's drawings of Canterbury may form the most complete record of World War II bomb damage to any British city outside London?
... that Avtar Singh Sohal and Surjeet Singh Panesar played for the Kenya field hockey team in four editions of the Olympics?
... that Aeschylus's lost play Semele is the only known example of the goddess Hera appearing on stage in ancient Greek tragedy?
... that Justin Timberlake uses boxing metaphors in "TKO" to describe the feeling of seeing a former lover with someone else?
... that one account of Tibet's first king said that he had webbed hands and eyelids that closed upward?

In the news

Jesse Jackson in 1983

American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson (pictured) dies at the age of 84.
The Nationalist Party, led by Tarique Rahman, wins the Bangladeshi general election.
In the Barbadian general election, the Labour Party wins a third term and every seat in the House of Assembly.
Shootings at a residence and a school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, leave nine people dead.

On this day

February 19

Flag of the Socialist Soviet Republic of Abkhazia

1600 – Huaynaputina, a stratovolcano in present-day Peru, produced the largest recorded volcanic explosion in South America.
1931 – The Socialist Soviet Republic of Abkhazia (flag pictured) was dissolved and reformed as the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, an autonomous republic of the Soviet Union within Georgia.
1942 – A book-burning was held and politicians were arrested in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, as part of a simulated Nazi invasion.
2006 – A methane explosion in a coal mine in Nueva Rosita, Mexico, trapped and killed 65 miners.
2011 – Items from the Belitung shipwreck, the largest single collection of Tang-dynasty artefacts found in one location, were first exhibited in Singapore.

Dorothe Engelbretsdatter (d. 1716)
Mary Dilys Glynne (b. 1895)
György Kurtág (b. 1926)
Choekyi Gyaltsen, 10th Panchen Lama (b. 1938)

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Today's featured picture

The Stolen Kiss is an oil painting on canvas historically attributed to the French painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Painted in the late 1780s in a style characteristic of the French Rococo period, it depicts a passionate kiss between two lovers. The composition is diagonal, made up by an axis composed through the woman's leaning figure, the shawl, and the balcony door opening from the outside, ending with the table over which the shawl is draped. The painting is in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Painting credit: Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Marguerite Gérard

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