Aneesah can still see the flag in her fourth-grade classroom.

"It's how they taught us to be American," she says, "by saying the Pledge of Allegiance."

But Aneesah says she didn't feel very American – or very accepted – in that room. She felt scared.

Read more at US News.

A single House member held up a bipartisan, negotiated $19.1 billion disaster aid package Friday, delaying assistance to communities hit by hurricanes, wildfires and floods and underscoring the decline in congressional collegiality.

The measure has bipartisan support, was approved overwhelmingly in the Senate Thursday and has President Donald Trump's promise of his signature. It surely would have passed if the House had put it up to a full vote.

Read more at US News.

At least 17 students have died as a fire ripped through their classrooms in India, officials said.

Students were seen jumping and falling from the building in the western city of Surat as black smoke billowed from windows.

Read more at BBC.

US President Donald Trump is clearing the sale of billions of dollars' worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, citing Iranian threats to its arch rival.

Mr Trump invoked a rarely used aspect of federal law to push through the $8bn (£6bn) deal, which would ordinarily need to be approved by Congress.

Read more at BBC.

Australian world number 36 Nick Kyrgios pulled out of the French Open with illness on Friday.

Kyrgios, who was due to play British number two Cameron Norrie in the first round, is said to have been "wiped out" by the bug.

Read more at BBC.

Somewhere along the way to charting the most detailed 3D map of our galaxy ever, the Gaia project hit a snag. Literally.

Something had blown a massive hole in the Milky Way. Ana Bonaca of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovered the rift, presenting her findings at a recent meeting of the American Physical Society — but we're literally in the dark on what caused it.

Read more at MNN.

A good chunk of regular coffee drinkers know that coffee isn’t just great at getting them awake in the morning—it also makes them get up and go poop. But while coffee’s laxative powers are well-known, it’s not clear why exactly this happens. To get to the bottom of this mystery, some scientists decided to do exactly what you’d expect scientists to: giving lab rats some coffee.

Their preliminary results, presented this weekend at a research conference aptly named Digestive Disease Week, seem to reaffirm a suspicion that coffee’s poop-making prowess has nothing to do with caffeine. Coffee might also kill off bacteria found in our guts.

Read more at Gizmodo.

Minecraft, which launched 10 years ago for the PC, has sold more than 176 million copies, which possibly makes it the best-selling video game of all time.

Microsoft announced the milestone in an Xbox Wire post that celebrates Minecraft‘s 10th birthday. Despite being around for a decade, the game’s popularity remains strong, helped by its presence in practically all video game platforms available.

Read more at Digital Trends.

When Elisabeth Milich shared a photo of her meager salary on Facebook last year, she never thought the simple post would change her life — and the lives of other teachers.

Last year, Milich, a 43-year-old second-grade teacher at Whispering Wind Academy in Phoenix, posted a shot showing her $35,000 teaching salary. Her intent, she says, was to highlight that many teachers struggle with the salary while having to pay for additional class supplies.

Read more at Money.