The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee sent a letter on Friday to the Coachella Valley Unified School District asking Coachella Valley High School to abandon its unbelievably offensive “Arab” mascot.

President Obama said in an interview with NBC News today that he is sorry some Americans have lost their existing health coverage due to the Affordable Care Act rollout. "I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me," he told Chuck Todd. "We've got to work hard to make sure they know we hear them."

"I don’t have to hide anymore," Northwest Christian University student body president Eric Fromm told the Register-Guard. "I know that people accept me for who I am."

There was a time—early 2012?—when memes were "cool," and "funny." In those days, I often laughed at the memes when I came across them in my browsing, sharing them with friends via Twitter or Facebook, and even posting them on Gawker.com.

It all started with a video of Justin Bieber sleeping.

[Prince William, observes breast reconstruction surgery on a female patient during a visit at the Royal Marsden hospital in Chelsea. Image by Lefteris Pitarakis via AP]

That half of the population that pees standing up knows of the ages-long struggle to find the perfect position for avoiding urinal splashback. But worry no more: a group of physicists at BYU has dedicated time, energy, and specially-calibrated nozzles to solving the problem, and they believe they've finally done it. (And, yes, they probably did get grant money for this.)

Stand-up comic Myles Weber was preparing to perform a set when a heckler started harassing the comedian ahead of him, who also happened to be his friend.

Outgoing NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly is requesting a taxpayer-funded, $720,000-per-year security detail for him and his family when he leaves office, reports DNAinfo. Only one other commissioner has asked for taxpayer-supported security upon stepping down, but Kelly seems to have accumulated more enemies than most.

Asteroid tails! Clean bacteria! Dinosaur gore! See-thru snails! Desert farming! Traffic math! Moon craters! And toothy fish that can't be killed! It's your Thursday Science Watch, where we watch science—with rancor!

In July of 2012, just four months before the citizens of Washington would vote to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, Michael Saffioti turned himself in to Snohomish County authorities after failing to meet a court date for a misdemeanor pot possession charge.

This week, two terrible accounts surfaced about police misconduct in New Mexico involving unjustified anal cavity searches. On Tuesday, New Mexico's KOB 4 published a report about a man who, after rolling through a stop sign, was forced by police undergo eight medical procedures—including rectal finger exams, enemas, and a colonoscopy—at a hospital. One day later, KOB reported on a second man ordered to undergo an x-ray and anal cavity search after turning without using his blinker.

The monstrous storm seen in this new satellite image is the biggest of the year and one of the most powerful tropical cyclones of all time. "Super typhoon" Haiyan is currently thrashing the entirety of the Philippines with sustained winds of 190 mph and gusts up to 230 mph, and then it's headed for Vietnam. It's such a wildly dangerous storm that it's even terrifying the weather forecasters.

Poynter's Andrew Beaujon reports that BuzzFeed has hired a books editor, Isaac Fitzgerald. The BuzzFeed books section is a project of real cultural importance. What Fitzgerald does will help establish and define the relationship between the thriving and successful BuzzFeed, with its mastery of distributing brisk and engaging viral content, and the more stolid traditions of literary publishing.

The New Yorker is trolling us, or Boston, or both.

The pregnant widow of the paralyzed Indiana man who chose to end life support has defended his decision to the Indianapolis Star. “I completely understood,” Abbey Bowers said, “but I was devastated because I didn’t have much time with him.”

You know that classic prank where people were asked to pose for photos in front of cameras that are actually shooting video? Well, this is like that, except none of the people in the video were asked to pose — they just assumed their photo was being taken.

It's an internet law that any new social media technology will instantly be used to buy and sell drugs. I've come across allegations of drug trades on Facebook, Topix, Craigslist, and, of course various Dark Net forums like Silk Road. Now Instagram is in the spotlight for apparently being a hotbed of artfully-filtered drug trafficking.

A Dearborn Heights, Michigan, homeowner told police that he shot Renisha McBride in the head when his shotgun discharged accidentally early Saturday morning. McBride was presumably looking for help following a car accident, but the man says he took her for an intruder and mistakenly shot her in the face.

William Gibson talks to the Paris Review: "It would be harder to accurately imagine what New York City was like the day before the advent of broadcast television than to imagine what it will be like after life-size broadcast holography comes online.... [W]e've already been there and nobody paid any attention."