4 Ways to Cut Back on Salt

About 90 percent of Americans eat too much. We asked experts how to consume less.
Source: 4 Ways to Cut Back on Salt

Did Hitler really have a 'micropenis'? The dubious documentary analysing the dictator's DNA

Was the wartime chant about his solitary testicle correct? Did he have Jewish ancestry? New documentary Hitler's DNA is trying to answer these, and more contentious, questions – but should it have gone there at all?

If a TV programme sets about sequencing the genome of Adolf Hitler – the person in modern history who comes closest to a universally agreed-upon personification of evil – there are at the very least two questions you want the producers to ask themselves. First: is it possible? And second, the Jurassic Park question: just because scientists can, should they?

Channel 4's two-part documentary Hitler's DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator is not the first time the self-consciously edgy British broadcaster has gone there. In 2014's Dead Famous DNA, it inadvertently answered both these questions in the negative. Having first cast aside ethical integrity by paying Holocaust denier David Irving £3,000 for a lock of hair purporting to belong to Adolf Hitler, the programme's makers then discovered it not to be Hitler's and thus useless for DNA sequencing.

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Source: Did Hitler really have a 'micropenis'? The dubious documentary analysing the dictator's DNA

Watch Jeff Bezos's successful Blue Origin rocket launch – video

Blue Origin successfully launches its huge New Glenn rocket on Thursday with a pair of Nasa spacecraft destined for Mars. It is only the second flight of the rocket that Jeff Bezos's company and Nasa are counting on to ferry people and supplies to the moon. The 321ft (98-meter) New Glenn blasts into the afternoon sky from the Cape Canaveral space force station, sending Nasa's twin Mars orbiters on a long journey to the red planet. Company employees cheer wildly as the booster lands upright on a barge 375 miles (600km) offshore while an ecstatic Bezos watches the action from launch control

• Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin launches rocket carrying twin Nasa spacecraft to Mars

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Source: Watch Jeff Bezos's successful Blue Origin rocket launch – video

Making noodles in a cave, our China writer gets a slice of country life

Deep in rural China, a Monitor writer learns to cook authentic handmade noodles, gaining a new understanding of country life in the process.
Source: Making noodles in a cave, our China writer gets a slice of country life

Why the world is watching Darfur again, 20 years later

The fall of El Fasher in western Sudan to a paramilitary force underscores the difficulties of ending the country's devastating civil war.
Source: Why the world is watching Darfur again, 20 years later

FAA fallout: Travelers face delays, cancellations at nation's busiest airports

Airlines cut over 1,000 U.S. flights as the government shutdown forces the FAA to reduce service amid unpaid air traffic controllers calling out, causing long lines and limited disruptions that could worsen if the shutdown continues. 
Source: FAA fallout: Travelers face delays, cancellations at nation's busiest airports

Presidents rarely use the Insurrection Act. Here's how Trump might invoke it.

President Donald Trump's efforts to deploy the National Guard in cities like Portland, Oregon, have faced legal hurdles. The Insurrection Act could give him another tool for putting troops in U.S. streets.
Source: Presidents rarely use the Insurrection Act. Here's how Trump might invoke it.

Sing to the Lord

As we open our hearts to a new song – a new view of ourselves as God's spiritual offspring – we find healing. An article inspired by this week's Bible lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly.
Source: Sing to the Lord

The transformative power of Love over anger

When we let God, Love, lead the way – rather than giving in to anger – the path to healing division and injustice opens.
Source: The transformative power of Love over anger

'You don't have to hurtle down slopes or dance like crazy at après parties': readers' favourite winter mountain holidays in Europe

The Alps, Spain's Sierra Nevada and the national parks of Sweden and Albania feature among our readers' treasured winter mountain breaks

Innsbruck offers lots of options for a winter holiday. I found it's a place where you don't have to hurtle down ski slopes or dance like crazy at après-ski parties. In fact I was amazed when I took the 20-minute cable car from the city centre up 2,000 metres to an area where locals were sitting in deckchairs on the snow reading books and sipping hot chocolate in the strong Tirolean sunshine. You can ski to your heart's content on slopes just half an hour from the famous Imperial Palace in the city centre. The city authorities provide some guided free walks and winter activities, including a cross-country skiing taster if you have a Welcome Card provided by your hotel. Then again, you can just sit and sample strong Austrian coffee or Gerschtnsuppe (soup with barley, smoked meat and vegetables) at riverside cafes and pubs.
Gina

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Source: 'You don't have to hurtle down slopes or dance like crazy at après parties': readers' favourite winter mountain holidays in Europe