How Brooklyn’s Neighborhoods Got Their Names

Brooklyn’s modern history began as six small Dutch towns on the southern tip of Long Island. From these inauspicious beginnings sprouted New York’s most populous borough, full of unique and distinct...

Why You Should Experiment With Marijuana And Mangoes In Quarantine

How do you make your marijuana supply last longer? A friend recently asked that question and I imagine it’s a question on multiple minds at the moment. Maybe your next cannabis...

Google and Levi’s built a new gesture-sensing smart jacket

The left sleeve on the blue denim jacket I’m wearing looks like a normal textile. But if I brush my right hand over that small part of the garment, moving inwards,...

Amanda Gorman calls on Americans to ‘leave behind a country better than the one...

"Somehow we've weathered and witnessed a nation that isn't broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming President, only to find herself reciting for one," the 22-year-old Gorman said in her poem, entitled, "The Hill We Climb." "We've seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it," Gorman recited, a reference to the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol that, as she told CNN last week, was a catalyzing inspiration for her poem. "Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated." Gorman, who regularly draws from current political events in her work, also spoke Wednesday of the need for social change: "We learned that quiet isn't always peace, and the norms and notions of what 'just is' isn't always justice." "We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man," Gorman said. "And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all." Born and raised in Los Angeles by a single-mother and 6th-grade English teacher, Gorman started writing poems when she was a child, but found it terrifying to perform due to a speech impediment. She overcame that fear by drawing confidence from former President Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr., and practices songs from the Broadway musical "Hamilton." She previously told CNN that she drew inspiration for the poem from the two poems read at Barack Obama's inauguration -- Richard Blanco's 2013 "One Today" and Elizabeth Alexander's 2009 "Praise Song for the Day" -- and writers, like Walt Whitman and Frederick Douglass, whom she feels have spoken to the ideals of a nation. She was halfway through writing the inauguration poem when she saw the pro-Trump mob storm the very same Capitol at which she spoke Wednesday, and she previously told CNN she would attempt to "communicate a message of joining together and crossing divides." This story has been updated with additional comments and background information. CNN's Veronica Stracqualursi contributed to this report.

All the Inauguration Day Design Stories You Need to Know

After what will go down as one of the most contentious presidential transitions in American history, January 20, 2021, marks the start of President Joe Biden’s term. While there’s been plenty of focus on both the outgoing president’s departure and the Biden administration’s agenda for its first 100 days, there are plenty of design components to America’s grandest political tradition worth taking note of—from cleaning the country’s most famous residence to projects marking the historic occasion.

Black South African Farmers Struggle To Enter Burgeoning Cannabis Market

HENNOPS, South Africa (AP) — Stacks of bright green cannabis plants, freshly harvested from nearby hothouses, are expertly sorted on a lab table by workers wearing hygienic gloves and caps who snip the...

Step Inside This Eclectic Manhattan Loft

Entrepreneur Bradford Shellhammer's home is an ever-evolving display of color, art, and self-expression

Here are the executive actions Biden is expected to take on Inauguration Day

Biden will sign a flurry of executive orders, memoranda and directives to agencies, making his first moves to address the coronavirus pandemic and undo some of Donald Trump's signature policies. With the stroke of a pen, he'll halt construction of Trump's border wall, reverse his travel ban targeting largely Muslim countries, and embrace progressive policies on the environment and diversity that Trump spent four years blocking.

Trump departs Washington a pariah as his era in power ends

The all-consuming, camera-hungry, truth-starved era that fixated the nation and exposed its darkest recesses officially concludes at noon Wednesday. The President, addled and mostly friendless, ended his time in the capital a few hours early to spare himself the humiliation of watching his successor be sworn in.

A Beginner’s Guide To Meditating With Cannabis

Cannabis can be a great accompaniment for any kind of meditation, as really all that involves is presence. Following are some reflections about how to add cannabis by Tara Rose, host...

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