Headlines from January 5, 2015

Global intersections of language and information reveal the elite’s continuing reliance on European languages.
For second funeral in a row, hundreds of NYPD officers turn their back on DeBlasio.
See also: Backwards-facing seats on airplanes are 10 times safer, but riders don’t want them.
Twenty-four of 25 black members of NYPD say they are racially profiled when off-duty.
Vietnam vet becomes first recipient of Medicare-covered sex reassignment surgery.
ESPN’s Stuart Scott dies from cancer at 49.
In his “newest and best book,” surgeon Atul Gawande gives a moving look at aging and death, but doesn’t go far enough on euthanasia.
Dallas restaurants revolt against newspaper critic, refusing to charge her for food so she can’t review them.
Not all calories are created equal: power of the sugar lobby keeps daily-sugar percentages from appearing on nutrition labels. #audio
Related: What 2,000 calories really looks like.
Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson currently attempting history’s hardest rock climb, “free climbing” a relentlessly smooth face of Yosemite’s El Capitan.
Following the centennial of the Panama Canal, Nicaragua begins work on a canal of its own.
Thanks to Thomas Piketty’s work, economists in 2015 are thinking about all wealth, and not just income.
What was once limited to a handful of tech-savvy obsessives is now the provenance of middle-class, middle-America moms.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s personal resolution for 2015: to finish a new book every two weeks.
To comply with the EU’s Court of Justice over the European “right to be forgotten,” Google seeks out a philosopher.
Experts at the National Gallery of Ireland show how to repair a Monet after someone punches it.
Long-lost synthesizer music for surgeons surfaces in a small Athens bookshop. #audio
Nearly all of Whittier, Alaska’s, 200 residents live in a single 14-story building complete with a police department, health clinic, and playground. #photography