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Today's featured article

John Oliver, comedian

Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption was a legally recognized church in the United States established by the comedian and satirist John Oliver (pictured). Announced on August 16, 2015, in an episode of the television program Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the church's purpose was to highlight and criticize televangelists, such as Kenneth Copeland and Robert Tilton, who Oliver argued used television broadcasts of Christian church services for private gain. Oliver also established Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption to draw attention to the tax-exempt status given to churches. During his show on September 13, 2015, Oliver announced that the church had received "thousands of dollars" and a variety of other items from viewers, and stated that the Church would be shutting down. All monetary donations were given to Doctors Without Borders. Oliver set up spinoffs of the Church in 2018 and 2021. The segments and later spinoff segments featured the comedian Rachel Dratch as Oliver's fictional wife, Wanda Jo. (Full article...)

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Today's featured picture

The great blue turaco (Corythaeola cristata) is a bird species in the turaco family, Musophagidae, which is widespread throughout the African tropical rainforest. It has a typical length of around 75 cm (30 in) with a mass of around 1 kg (2 lb). The adult great blue turaco has predominantly gray-blue upperparts with an upright blue-black crest. Its bill is yellow and the two sexes have similar plumage. This great blue turaco was photographed in Kibale National Park, Uganda.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

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In the News

Jeremiah Manele

Following the Solomon Islands general election, Jeremiah Manele (pictured) becomes the prime minister.
Acting prime minister of Haiti Ariel Henry resigns, and the Transitional Presidential Council is sworn in.
NASA announces that the Voyager 1 space probe is sending readable data for the first time in five months.
The HDZ-led coalition wins the most seats in the Croatian parliamentary election but falls short of a majority.
Ichthyotitan, the largest known marine reptile, is formally described.

Did you know?

Fredy Clue wearing Bäckadräkten

... that Bäckadräkten (pictured) is Sweden's first unisex folk costume?
... that several ambiguously gendered figurines from pre-Columbian Ecuador can be analyzed through the lens of transgender archaeology?
... that despite the titular character of the game Cat Bird being a hybrid of a cat and a bird, critics thought the character looked more like a bat?
... that the first words in English that National Football League player Bayron Matos knew were "I'm hungry"?
... that the 1748 chapbook A Spy on Mother Midnight is studied for its sex scenes with cross-dressing and a dildo?
... that Asha Sobhana is the first Indian player to take a five-wicket haul in the Women's Premier League?
... that the posthumously released documentary Clean centered on the life of Sandra Pankhurst, a former sex worker, drag queen, and crime scene cleaner?
... that the last twenty residents of the only Shilshole village on Salmon Bay in Seattle were evicted in 1914 to allow the creation of the Ballard Locks?
... that the Darwin Rocksitters Club had "no funny business" as their first, third, and fifth rules?

On this day...

May 3: World Press Freedom Day; Constitution Memorial Day in Japan (1947); Constitution Day in Poland (1791)

Benty Grange helmet

1481 – The largest of a series of earthquakes struck the island of Rhodes, causing an estimated 30,000 casualties.
1848 – The Benty Grange helmet (pictured), a boar-crested Anglo-Saxon helmet similar to those mentioned in the contemporary epic poem Beowulf, was discovered in Derbyshire, England.
1939 – Subhas Chandra Bose formed the All India Forward Bloc, a faction within the Indian National Congress, in opposition to Gandhi's tactics of nonviolence.
1999 – A Doppler on Wheels team measured the fastest winds recorded on Earth, at 301 ± 20 mph (484 ± 32 km/h), in a tornado near Bridge Creek, Oklahoma.

Elizabeth Bacon (d. 1621)
Jacob Riis (b. 1849)
Bob McCallister (b. 1934)
Ron Hextall (b. 1964)

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