The Gist

A Song You Can Graduate To

It will probably be about war. Because life is a war. Here’s your diploma.

Students at the University of Birmingham on July 14, 2009, in Birmingham, England.

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

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On The Gist, those beacons of honesty—retiring Republican members of the Congress.

Cremation has the carbon footprint of a 1,000-mile road trip, your average bee has nearly 1 million brain cells, and only 3 to 4 percent of gossip is actually “malicious.” Those are all statistics relayed in Walt Hickey’s Numlock News, the daily newsletter he started after four years at FiveThirtyEight.

In the Spiel, graduation songs over the years.

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