The free e-book is available on art publishing platform e-flux, The Blaze reported. The author, Walling Blackburn, is assistant professor of art at Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts and founder of The Anhoek School. 

“Lee is Papa and Mama’s only child for now, although there once was a sister,” the book began. “Where does Sister live now?” 

At one point, Lee explained to his Papa, “Well, she used to live in Mama and doesn’t anymore.” After Papa agreed, Lee reiterated, “She lived before me, but Mama couldn’t keep her. Mama says she is a ghost.” 

When Lee’s Papa asked, “Des that make you sad or scared?” Lee changed his tune. “I’m not sad that my sister is a ghost! If you kept my sister, you would be tired, and sad, and mad!” When his father questioned why, Lee continued:

“Because we would be wild and loud and sometimes we would fight. Mama might be scared that she could not buy enough food for us. Mama might not have enough time to read to me, to paint with me, to play with me, to talk with me…” 

Papa also noted “good reasons” Lee doesn’t have a sister “right here right now.” “Maybe you will have another sister when there is more time, and there is more money,” Papa said.

Saxony-Anhalt - According to exit polls the AfD won almost 23 percent in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, making it the second largest party after the ruling CDU, which managed to win 29 percent.

Rhineland-Palatinate - In the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate the ruling SPD looks set to remain in power, with exit polls putting them at 37.5 per cent. The conservative CDU, led by Julia Klöckner, has lost around three percent, and was reported to stand at 32.5 per cent. The Greens reportedly barely managed to cross the five percent threshhold needed for representation in parliament. Meanwhile, the AfD managed to win around eleven percent.

Baden-Württemberg - According to early figures in Baden-Württemberg the ruling Green Party gained a substantial 32 percent, while the CDU, which ruled the state for almost six decades until 2011, lost a dramatic 11 percent bringing it out to 27.5 percent. The AfD also managed to win 13.1 percent in this state putting in third place before the SPD, currently the junior coalition partner in government, which fell to 13 percent (from 23) in 2011.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere meanwhile had cautioned voters against backing the AfD, saying its call to close the borders "harms our country." "The AfD has no political concept and no competence in terms of finding solutions" to Germany's problems, he told "Die Welt" newspaper.

Blackmailed by the repressive regime in Turkey, Angela Merkel, Europe’s paymaster, set about last week setting up visa-free travel to the EU for the 75 million people living there. And, because we have no sovereignty over immigration from the EU, if Frau Merkel is saying 75 million Turks can walk into Europe, then they can walk into Britain.

As I have repeatedly noted, Mr Cameron had no “renegotiation” of our relationship with our partners. If we vote to stay in on June 23, things stay as they are – or, quite possibly, become worse, because we shall be completely at the mercy of further decisions taken not by the other 27 countries, but by one woman in her Chancellery in Berlin.

The main cause of the British people’s agitation with the EU was that we could not stop people from it entering our country. Mr Cameron did not fail to win that concession: he didn’t even ask for it.

Disagreements are private, or expressed publicly only in oblique language. This week, however, the President said that Mr Cameron had been “distracted by a range of other things” after bombing Libya. Britain and France, he suggested, had left Libya a “mess” – or something more unprintable, which was, nevertheless, printed.

If the public wondered how serious this attack was, doubt was quickly dispelled when the administration rushed to correct their boss’ outburst. The BBC could not stop reporting that the follow-up email they had received from the White House expressing sudden presidential joy in the Special Relationship had been completely unsolicited.

Great was the rage in 10 Downing Street that provoked this grovel from Washington. Here was Mr Cameron trying to show British voters in our forthcoming EU referendum that his leadership bestrides Europe and America and that his foot in one camp secures his foot in the other. And here was the President of the United States saying that the Europeans in general (“free riders”), and his closest European ally in particular (Mr Cameron), were useless.

One must, of course, add that Mr Obama has been busy fighting climate change. When you are saving the planet, he suggests, there isn’t much time to deal with mere mass murderers, such as Isil. Despite his African heritage, the first black President seems more preoccupied than any other leader by what are known as “First World problems”.

So, for nearly eight years now, the leader of the free world has not led it – time enough to notice the unfavourable difference this has made to the global balance of power.

Now, a company in the Los Angeles area has admitted that it was hired to seed the clouds and make it rain: And so, rain has increased in California by something like 15%, and LA is happy to get all the water it can. But cloud seeding is not without its consequences – it could keep it from raining in the area downwind, or have other potentially disastrous effects:

It could have unintended consequences, including a change in precipitation or other environmental impact downwind of the target area, though such effects have not yet been demonstrated. An earlier cloud seeding contract from 2009 was terminated in Los Angeles after the Station Fire, which destroyed about 250 square miles of the Angeles National Forest, LA Times writes.

And the Christian community has not been immune. Just look at the current election cycle. Candidates like Donald Trump have fiercely divided faith “tribes,” especially evangelicals. In recent research on the presidential race, Barna found that the five unique personal faith segments in America — evangelicals, non-evangelical born again Christians, notional Christians, people associated with non-Christian faiths, and religious skeptics — hold substantially different attitudes and candidate preferences, causing deep tensions and divides.

This splintering and polarization of American culture has made it more difficult than ever to have a good conversation.

Lenders have secretly been asked to give terms for a loan of up to £5.6 billion and with the option to increase it, according to sources close to the matter. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest crude oil producer and low oil prices have slashed the Arab country's profits.

After years of the royal family living a life of unbelievable luxury and citizens being cushioned with low taxes and bill subsidies, the country is now being brought back down to earth with a bang. At the end of last year, the kingdom unveiled a £66 billion deficit and warned its people of raised taxes.

Flooding along one part of the Sabine River has already broken the previous record by more than five feet, and this crisis is far from over. Of course this just continues a trend that I have been documenting for months now. Never before in US history have we ever seen so many historic floods in such a compressed time frame.

October: Hurricane Joaquin never makes landfall, but it tracks up the east coast of the United States causing nightmarish rainfall and flooding all over the eastern seaboard.

October: Violent storms in southern California caused flash flooding that buried some highways in “rivers of mud” that were up to six feet deep. 

October: Hurricane Patricia was the second most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded in the entire world, and remnants from that storm caused absolutely horrible flooding in some parts of Texas.

November-December: A “conveyor belt” of violent storms barreled into coastal areas of Oregon and Washington causing nightmarish flooding in many areas. 

January: The middle part of the country experienced record-breaking flooding as the calendar rolled over from 2015 to 2016. For something like this to happen in the middle of the winter was absolutely unprecedented.

January: On January 22nd, one of the worst east coast blizzards in history slammed into Washington DC, New York City and other major metropolitan areas.  More than three feet of snow was dumped on some areas …

March: The area right along the Texas/Louisiana border is a complete and total disaster right now.

Are we looking at the effects of climate change or shifting weather patterns? Could it be possible that what we are watching is actually the judgment of God as some are suggesting? The United States has never seen anything like this before. Clearly something is happening.

Lord King, who steered the Bank through the 2008 financial crisis, refused to take sides in the referendum debate. But he said the launch of the euro had been an unmitigated disaster. 'The attempt to create a monetary union has been damaging economically, and it has been damaging politically,' he said. 'There are no good ways out of it. It's only a question of the least bad way'.

The grim prognosis from the former central banker was seized on by Eurosceptics as evidence it is 'game over' for the eurozone. But Lord King saved his most explosive comments for Europe's biggest economy, saying Germany's dominance has been one of the more damaging consequences of the single currency project.

Perry, who served as defense secretary in Bill Clinton’s administration from 1994 to 1997, said at a Guardian Live event in London on Wednesday that he believes significant improvements were achieved in relations between the US and Russia, including in the sphere of military cooperation, in the early years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, that course eventually came to naught. Perry said that a complete lack of regard for Russia as a power or a dialogue partner from Washington officials played a crucial role in this reversal.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed earlier in March that a policy of confrontation with the West is not something that Moscow wants. “We are not seeking confrontation with the United States, or the European Union, or NATO. On the contrary, Russia is open to the widest possible cooperation with its Western partners. We continue to believe that the best way to ensure the interests of the peoples living in Europe is to form a common economic and humanitarian space from the Atlantic to the Pacific, so that the newly formed Eurasian Economic Union could be an integrating link between Europe and Asia Pacific,” Lavrov said.

But because most of the states so far have apportioned delegates proportionally, Trump only has 44.8 percent of the delegates that have been awarded up to this point.  So Trump is going to have to do significantly better through the rest of the process in order to get to the magic number of 1,237 delegates, especially since not all of the delegates are awarded through the primaries and caucuses.  As Real Clear Politics has detailed, every state “is awarded so-called ‘RNC delegates,’ who are party officials with automatic credentials to the convention”.

Right now, more than 40 percent of all the delegates to the convention have already been awarded, and Trump is sitting at just 458.  To get to 1,237, he is going to have to do really well in the upcoming winner-take-all states.  That is why there is so much focus on Florida and Ohio on March 15th.  If Trump wins both of them, he will have a path to 1,237 delegates.  If he doesn’t, that is where things get tricky.

If Donald Trump shows up at the convention with fewer than 1,237 delegates, he will be vulnerable, and it is likely that the Republican establishment will try to steal the nomination away from him.

Not only that, they deliver 90% of the added sugars that Americans eat and drink, according to a study published Wednesday in the medical journal BMJ Open. Government health experts advise Americans to get no more than 10% of their total calories in the form of added sugars. But most us aren’t listening.

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said that 71% of American adults exceed that 10% goal, and that added sugars account for 15% of all the calories they consume. All of that added sugar makes people more likely to be overweight or obese. That, in turn, sets them up for serious health problems like Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer (not to mention lots of cavities).

The central bank also cut its main interest rate to zero and lowered its deposit rate even further into negative territory at minus 0.4 per cent, in effect charging banks more to hold deposits with it. Four long-term loan schemes were also announced, with banks given incentives to boost credit growth with cheaper rates. Mr Draghi is bidding to lift the inflation rate – currently minus 0.2 per cent – and growth, which was just 0.3 per cent in the latest quarter.

The ECB was determined to avoid the disappointment over its stimulus measures in December, treated as a damp squib by the market. However, although the latest package unveiled by the central bank chief initially sent the euro plunging against other major currencies – with the benefits that implied in terms of boosting eurozone exports and importing inflation – Mr Draghi reversed the sell-off in just one sentence during his press conference.

His comments that “taking into account the support of our measures to growth and inflation, we don’t anticipate that it will be necessary to reduce rates further” sent dealers piling back into the single currency. It ended up gaining ground against the pound and the dollar.