NEW YORK (AP) — How much is a signed Harper Lee novel worth? Her publisher is offering a special edition of "Go Set a Watchman" for $1,500.

HarperCollins Publishers announced Wednesday that 500 collector's editions are available — leather bound with gold foil stamping, inside a velvet-lined cloth box. HarperCollins told The Associated Press that Lee, 89 and in frail condition, signed the books during the past few months.

Prices on eBay for signed Harper Lee books range from $1,000 for an anniversary edition of "To Kill a Mockingbird" to $15,000 for a signed and inscribed first edition of her Pulitzer Prize winning novel. 

"Go Set a Watchman" is the unexpected second book by the press-shy author and has been on best-seller lists for much of the year despite mostly negative reviews and simmering doubts that Lee was fully aware of the book's release.

Written in the mid-1950s, "Watchman" was completed before "Mockingbird," but takes place 20 years later in the same small Southern community. The depiction of "Mockingbird" hero Atticus Finch as a racist opposed to integration startled readers and critics and set off an extended debate about one of literature's most beloved characters.

Lee, a Monroeville, Alabama, native, had long said that "Mockingbird" would be her only book.

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TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — An empty wooden frame once occupied by Willem de Kooning's "Woman-Ochre" sits at the center of a gallery at the University of Arizona's Museum of Art in Tucson.

Next to it are the composite drawings of two people police say stole the painting the day after Thanksgiving in 1985. The museum wants to remind visitors of the heist in hopes that a new lead in the 30-year unsolved mystery will appear.

"We have not given up hope about getting the painting back," Gina Compitello-Moore, the museum's marketing director, said. "By not having it, it's almost as if a member of our family is missing."

The painting by the abstract expressionist was stolen on Nov. 29, 1985 from the small museum that also has works by Jackson Pollock and Georgia O'Keeffe.

The museum had just opened when a man and a woman walked in. They were the sole visitors. The woman, described as being in her mid-50s with shoulder-length reddish and blond hair, distracted the a security guard by making small-talk while the man, who appeared to be in his 20s and wore a mustache and glasses, cut the painting from the large frame, leaving the edges of the canvass attached.

Within minutes, they were gone, taking with them one of the museum's most important pieces. The painting was valued at about $600,000 when it was stolen.

"We have no idea why this particular painting was stolen. It could have been the size of the work. It could have been that this is probably his most recognized work," Compitello-Moore said. 

Brian Seastone, the university's police chief, was an officer back then who helped investigate the heist. He says the department, along with the FBI and other agencies working the theft, received a number of tips that led them nowhere.

"The gentleman pretty much knew what he wanted, it appeared, and went upstairs. And after a few minutes they both left very quickly and it drew the attention of the security officer who was there," Seastone said. "Since then, it's kind of become not a legend but one of those things that's out there that people will talk about once in a while."

Seastone says the man's mustache and glasses may have been fake, an effort to disguise himself, and that the woman also may have been in costume.

Compitello-Moore said now is a good time to bring attention to the stolen painting because it could have changed hands by now, and its owner could not know they have a stolen piece.

"We're happy to have to have the frame in there but we of course wish it were the painting," she said.

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British designer Lili Murphy-Johnson isn't afraid to talk about periods. In fact, she's sick and tired of the stigma associated with women and menstruation. Months after artist Rupi Kaur encountered the wrath of Instagram censorship with her "period photos," Etsy deemed images of Murphy-Johnson's period-inspired jewelry "inappropriate." The designer conceded that some of her photos were "quite naked," but she remained perplexed by the idea that they were any more offensive than the near-nude advertisements she sees throughout London on a regular basis.

"My collection is inspired by menstruation," Murphy-Johnson writes online, "and the frustrating, leaking female body." Take a peek at her latest jewelry line, and it's not difficult to parse out this inspiration. In one photograph on Murphy-Johnson's website, a pair of otherwise pristinely white panties is adorned with a single, strategically placed, red beaded spot. In another, a flurry of ruby-colored rings is displayed on a hand that's lovingly cupping a woman's crotch. Then there's her simple gold bracelet, fitted with charms that look like tampons, sanitary pads and feminine deodorant spray.

"I wanted to create beautiful jewelry out of something that is conventionally seen by society to be shameful," Murphy-Johnson explained to Broadly. "Periods should be a normal thing to talk about, but so often we feel embarrassed." She elaborates online, saying that her gorgeous, period-inspired jewelry consists of three parts: "Period Paraphernalia" (for example, the charm bracelet), "Blood" (those deep red rings), and "PMS" (centered around the hormonal mood swings associated with premenstrual syndrome). 

The Huffington Post checked in with the 22-year-old designer to learn more:

Starting with an easy one: What exactly inspired this collection?

The initial inspiration was my own PMS. The anxiety and irritation was holding back my work and I was struggling to find a concept to develop, so I decided to replicate the symptoms of what I was dealing with into jewelry.

How did you choose the materials for each "stage" of your collection? Is everything handmade, and how long does it take to create one piece?

For the "Period Paraphernalia" section (the charm bracelet, cuff and sanitary towel ring), I wanted to use traditional jewelry-making techniques, so the pieces looked very innocent at first glance. They were all handmade; it took a while to make each piece as some techniques, such as etching the carefree cuff, I struggled with. But generally it would take me a couple of weeks to make each piece as I wanted them. For these pieces, I wanted to use traditional jewelry materials like gold, silver and gemstones.

For the "Blood" section ("Laila's Flower" and "Overspill," the embroidered knickers and shirt) I wanted to be more open to what jewelry design could be. "Laila's Flower" and "Overspill" are photographs. I collected jewelry from markets that weren't associated with menstruation and photographed and styled them to match my concept. These photographs were just done one afternoon in the workshop. The embroidered knickers and shirt took the longest time, each one took around a week of solid embroidering.

The "PMS" section (the bouncing ball necklaces) were very quick to make, I wanted to be carefree with my making process of these pieces, trying to keep the object as close to the emotion I was trying to translate as possible.

In a past conversation between one of our writers, Mallika Rao (who grew up in a Hindu family), and artist Rupi Kaur (who grew up in a Sikh family), the two discussed the cultural and religious superstitions that have perpetuated the notion that menstruation is "defiling." What has your experience been with these kinds of superstitions?

Most people that I've grown up around have been pretty comfortable about periods, I haven't really got any interesting experiences of superstitions around it.

You, like Rupi, did encounter censorship online though -- she on Instagram and you on Etsy, when some of your images were deemed inappropriate. Etsy is somewhat of a different platform than Instagram, but how did you react to their claim that you violated their guidelines?

I was a little annoyed and surprised, as I didn't feel my jewelry was in any way offensive or inappropriate to be showing people. It was frustrating to be told I was doing something "wrong" when I knew it wasn't. I understand that the photography I used was quite naked -- but next to how women are photographed in adverts all over London every day, I didn't think it was a bad thing to show people.

In a statement on your website, you mention the conflict inherent in perceptions of the female body -- that the body can be seen "as so perfect, yet also as so grotesque and unclean." 

Yes, I do think there is a strange conflict with how people view women's bodies. Like I mentioned in my previous answer, women in adverts are celebrated and admired when they're in underwear or dresses and have makeup on and their hair styled. However, if that women is visibly menstruating, I think it would change a lot of people's perception of her, even though it is a very normal thing for a woman's body to do.

You mention the over-saturation of products in drugstores, too. I always wonder this, so I'm interested in your thoughts: How could drugstores -- or even "feminine product" producers -- help to change the general perception of menstruation? Would it help if we saw diva cups front and center in the aisles? Are there other things they can do?

I think some companies are changing the way they advertise their products in a really good way. There are a lot more humorous adverts like Bodyform's "The Truth" advert where they talk to Richard, or Always' "#LikeAGirl" adverts which were empowering about women and menstruating. I think these changes help, but yes, I think shops could be more open to other methods of dealing with your period, maybe more practical and less about "beauty" and encouraging the stigma.

For a lot of artists attempting to alter perceptions of the female body -- through #FreeTheNipple or projects like yours -- there comes a lot of discussion about an artist's desire to raise visibility for certain issues, but sometimes, attempts at raising visibility are interpreted as a desire to shock audiences. Have you encountered anything like this? Do you have any specific desire to "shock" audiences?

I have encountered comments of people suggesting that I am just trying to shock and be controversial, but that has never been my aim with the collection. The pieces I made were developed from my process of looking into what menstruation is to me. I think they are only shocking if the person looking at them is shocked by menstruation itself.

Finally, who do you hope is buying and seeing your products?

I would want absolutely anyone to wear the jewelry, whether they have periods or not. Anyone who likes the idea of wearing sanitary towels and tampons.

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Over the years James Taylor has been candid about his personal struggles, from opening up about spending time as a teen in a psychiatric hospital to descending into heroin addiction during the early stages of his career.  While the singer-songwriter spent years facing his own demons, he wasn't the only Taylor family member tormented by personal troubles -- a particularly intimate topic he reflects on during a recent appearance for "Oprah's Master Class."

"There's a mysterious sort of darkness in my family tree," Taylor says.

For instance, Taylor's father, whom he describes as functional and brilliant, was also an alcoholic. 

"People argue about substance abuse and whether or not addiction is genetically predisposed," he says. "I think it probably is. There's definitely that gene in my family. Whether it's nature or nurture, we tend to be addicted."

Taylor's eldest brother also struggled with addiction. "I lost my brother to it. Alcoholism killed him. Just, literally killed him," Taylor says.

And addiction wasn't the only issue that Taylor believes he and his siblings were susceptible to, adding that they were also all "so subject to depression."

"That's a double-edged thing -- it's not entirely negative," he says. "In dealing with it, in contemplating it, in trying to get relief, I think a lot of art is generated."

Each of the five Taylor siblings did eventually become recording artists in some respect, and Taylor was often inspired to write and sing songs about the relatively taboo subjects of depression and addiction himself. The future Grammy winner certainly had material to work with, especially around the 1960s.

"There was this period of time when my family kind of came off the rails," Taylor says. "My dad's drinking became an issue... I think that sort of came to a head, came to a crisis, in the late sixties. My folks broke up. I don't know what sent the Taylor siblings into such a tailspin, but three of us ended up in psychiatric hospital."

It was also a tumultuous period for the country. "It was at a time in the popular culture when things were really coming unglued," Taylor says. "It was a very exciting time and very unsettling."

This is when he first tried heroin.

"The drummer from my band, The Flying Machine, was a heroin addict," Taylor says. "It was a matter of time before I got my first taste. And I was gone. As soon as I was introduced to opiates, I was gone."

Now sober for more than three decades, Taylor also shares what he learned from his experience.

"The main thing I would say about it is: Avoid an addiction. That means if you like something an awful lot and it's an addictive substance, run like hell," Taylor says. "If you love it, let that be the last time you ever touched it."

"Oprah's Master Class" airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on OWN.

More from Oprah.com:

The day James Taylor's father rescued him in New York City

James Taylor's best advice for addicts: "Sweat it out."

Why certain songs make James Taylor weep

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The Museum of Feelings markets itself vaguely as "the first museum that reacts to emotions -- and turns them into art." Located in a pop-up location in New York City's financial district, the 5,300-square-foot portable building -- filled with sensory-titillating installations -- has been catching people's attention, and not just because of its mood ring-like physical appearance in Battery Park.

Earlier this month, an event posting began circulating across Facebook, garnering interest from over 62,000 curious social media users. "The Museum of Feelings actually feels things," the post asserted. "Its unique exterior reacts to social media and real-time data to reflect New York's ever-changing mood in vivid color." With little more than an address, a picture and a note that reads "FREE ADMISSION," the Museum of Feelings according to Facebook remained pretty inscrutable.

There was a link, however. I clicked on that link, and was taken to a collage-happy site that immediately prompts you to make a "moodlens" -- essentially, a selfie that reflects your changing emotional state. All you need to do is log in using your Twitter or Facebook account, upload a self-portrait, record a brief sound bite, and voila! What initially looks like a Starburst-hued aura portrait actually morphs over the course of several days, all according to "biometric input, social media trends and other real-time data in your region."

My moodlens can be seen below, changing from silly to invigorated to energized to refreshed. (At least, that's what the provided "mood info" told me I was feeling.) Accompanying the mood descriptions were a few suggestions for scents that might compliment my emotions. Interesting ...

Besides standing in as a social media-ready profile picture, my moodlens joined hundreds of other moodlenses on the Museum of Feelings website, contributing to a Living Gallery meant to gauge the emotions of various cities across the world. Access the Living Gallery and you can observe the moods of New York, Omaha, Cape Town, London, Berlin and more. (New York is 29 percent optimistic at the time of writing this piece. Zero percent of all users on the site were feeling anxious at the time, which gives me more cause to believe the metrics behind the moodlenses are less than accurate.)

Only until you scroll to the bottom of the website -- or the bottom of the aforementioned Facebook event post -- do you notice the brand behind the museum: Glade. After you've uploaded your selfie and joined the feelings revolution, you may realize that you've donated your image to a marketing campaign. Because the Museum of Feelings, I'm afraid, is a giant advertisement for Glade's new line of scents.

While there are no overt mentions of Glade candles or Glade air fresheners, the scent recommendations in your mood profiles are meant to send you on a hunt for fragrances. Does that mean you can't enjoy the pop-up show, or even the online self-portrait machine? That's up to you. Evan Schechtman, digital creative director and chief technology officer at Radical Media, the creative firm who brought Glade's sensory ambitions to life, described the actual museum as a "wine tasting" for the senses. David Plumb, writing for Fast Company, further detailed the series of interactive installations on view in NYC, including a bunch of Yayoi Kusama-esque rooms fitted with scent lamps, kaleidoscopic mirrors, plush carpets, dangling vines and fog machines.

Still intrigued? The Museum of Feelings will be open until Dec. 15. Enter at your own (consumerist) risk.

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Until very recently, the image above, titled "La Bella Principessa," was known by amateur and expert art historians to be the work of 15th century master Leonardo -- you know, the one from Vinci. However, in his memoir A Forger's Tale, famed forger Shaun Greenhalgh claims the drawing, reportedly worth a cool $225,000, is his handiwork. 

According to Greenhalgh, the gold-tinged portrait is not a depiction of an enigmatic Renaissance beauty who looks better from her left side, but in fact, a woman named Sally who worked checkout at the local food co-op.

"I drew this picture in 1978 when I worked at the Co-op," Greenhalgh wrote. "The ‘sitter’ was based on a girl called Sally who worked on the checkouts." He added: "She was a bossy little bugger and very self-important." 

Prior to this unexpected revelation, the work was rumored to depict 13-year-old Bianca Sforza, the illegitimate daughter of Ludovico Sforza, the duke of Milan from 1494 to 1499. To achieve that authentic 15th century look, Greenhalgh claims to have repurposed a 1587 land deed to work as his vellum and a Victorian school desk as backing. And finally, he says he turned the image 90 degrees clockwise to mirror Leonardo da Vinci's left-handed style.

In 2007, Manchester-born Greenhalgh was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison for a series of his homemade fakes, including drawings, paintings and sculptures. His parents, George and Olive, who too were involved, were given suspended sentences. If he's telling the truth, Greenhalgh would have been only 17 years old at the time of Principessa's creation. 

The ink and chalk portrait first surfaced to the public in 1998 at Christie's. The work was introduced by Jeanne Marchig, who said that her husband Giannino owned it when they wed in 1955. The drawing then sold to a Canadian collector. It wasn't until 2008 that the portrait was identified as the work of Leonardo. Renaissance specialist Martin Kemp, of the University at Oxford, dated the image to 1495-96, and introduced the theory of Bianca as subject. 

In 2011, experts authenticated "La Bella Principessa" as a work by Leonardo himself, although the decision is still contested by some. In August of this year, Alessandro Soranzo and Michael Newberry of Sheffield Hallam University conducted a study, published in Vision Research, that explored the intricacies of the subject's expression, comparing Principessa's beguiling smile to that of the "Mona Lisa."

Kemp is far from convinced that Greenhalgh's alleged ownership of the work is true. For one, if the work was owned by Giannino Marchig in 1955, Greenhalgh would not have been born yet. Furthermore, the chalk used in the drawing dates back to the pre-17th century. It's unlikely, of course, that a 17-year-old would know how to get his hands on such a medium.

To The Art Newspaper, he described the claim as "hilarious."

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On Friday, just one day after millions of Americans sat down for Thanksgiving dinner, a man began an hours-long assault at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs which left a police officer and two civilians dead.

The Washington Post and Newsweek have since reported that the alleged shooter, Robert Lewis Dear Jr., used the phrase "no more baby parts" when talking to police afterwards. (The comment likely references the heavily-edited videos an anti-abortion group made about Planned Parenthood, which featured discussion of the -- completely legal! -- practice of fetal tissue donation.) Dear was also once arrested on "Peeping Tom" charges, and faced an allegation of domestic violence.

Sadly, the news of a mass shooting is no longer surprising. Neither is the fact that this shooting took place at a Planned Parenthood clinic or that the alleged gunman has a history of being accused of violence against women. The whole tragic incident feels depressingly, quintessentially American.

Can we really be surprised that year after year we see the bullets of male rage and toxic masculinity littered across our country?

Acts of violence against abortion providers do not exist in a vacuum. There is a long, storied history of attacks on clinics -- this year alone there have been four arson attacks on Planned Parenthood clinics. There's a reason that the staff at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood had completed drills and trainings for emergencies such as an "armed attack."

And there is a long, storied history of vicious anti-abortion rhetoric in this country, much of which aims to intimidate those who provide abortions and the women who get them. After Friday's shooting, many men and women tweeted their support for the gunman, with comments like, "planned parenthood kills a million babies and no one bats an eye. but 1 brave hero tries to put a stop to that, everyone loses their minds" and "Active Shooter Colorado Planned Parenthood. I would think this brave HERO is saving innocent Baby lives!"

Terrifyingly, the tweets don't sound all that different from the language used by Republican presidential candidates. Both Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee have compared abortion to slavery, and Carly Fiorina described gruesome footage from an anti-Planned Parenthood video which she said showed "a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain." The only catch? The footage never existed. 

The Guardian's Jessica Valenti summed up the terrifying power of such rhetoric in two sentences: "We know why this [shooting] happened... Because of hate, because of lies, and because words matter." 

Not only do words matter, but representation and education matter, too. It is no accident that we see so few women getting abortions without horrific consequences on television -- in 2015, the normalized abortion storylines on both "Jessica Jones" and "Scandal" still felt revolutionary. And the state of sexual education in this country is deplorable. Often students are taught to fear sex but not how to have it safely; they're taught to condemn abortion but not how to avoid unplanned pregnancy.

We live in a culture that breeds people who are terrified of women who exercise bodily autonomy -- especially when that autonomy involves decision-making around sex and family planning. When you combine that fear with a society that tells men they are entitled to women's bodies, time, attention and affection in the ways they deem fit, and generally does not teach men how to express their emotions in a productive fashion, can we really be surprised that year after year we see the bullets of male rage and toxic masculinity littered across our country? 

The whole tragic incident feels depressingly, quintessentially American.

It is always impossible to pinpoint the exact combination of factors that drive someone to shoot up a public space, whether it's a church or a movie theater or a clinic. Mental illness may have played a part in the Colorado Springs attack. But it certainly doesn't explain why a man targeted a Planned Parenthood and used lies perpetuated by anti-abortion activists to justify his actions.

Reminder: Misogyny is not a mental illness.

It is exhausting to read -- and write -- about shooting after shooting after shooting. Exhausting to see white male shooters consistently labelled "mentally ill lone wolves."

It's exhausting to witness a political climate that tacitly condones women being bullied and terrorized for accessing legal health care. Exhausting to live in a country where people are willing to openly condone a senseless attack that left three dead and nine wounded. 

Because, ultimately, when an organization that primarily serves women is under attack, all women are under attack. 

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The opening was timed to coincide with the UN's International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. But when artists arrived at Beijing's Jinge Art Gallery to install the show, they discovered the doors had been bolted shut.

“The reason our exhibition was called off is pressure from higher authorities," Guangxia said. According to the curator the debate surrounding gender equality and the size of the exhibition made authorities uneasy. 

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"I cannot go to Starbucks without getting shady looks from baristas and customers who feel that I'm trying to act white by ordering a chai créme frappuccino, and make that with cinnamon and soy milk because I'm lactose intolerant." 

This is just one of the many struggles high school student Khamal Iwuanyanwu says he faces as a young black man in his spoken poem, "Sepia," which he recited at the 2015 Get Lit teen poetry slam in Los Angeles, California last April. The poetry competition featured students from over 50 LA-area schools, but Iwanyanwu's emotionally gripping performance received the highest score of the night. Video from the event was published on November 25, and has already received nearly 10,000 views.

Iwuanyanwu powerfully explains how the experience of being a black boy is not a single story of celebration or oppression. "Black boy be proud of your skin it is not a scar but a trophy, a medal of honor carried down by each one of your kin," Iwuanyanwu says. "Black boy beware your skin. It is not a trophy, but a target." 

In the last few lines of the poem, Iwuanyanwu states he is not a defined solely by his race, or racist stereotypes. "I am not just some black boy. I am a person and I am living," he says.

He then finishes his poem with one final blow: "Why do you hate me? My only offense was being born darker than you."

Preach. 

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Cards Against Humanity made a real killing this Black Friday.

The popular "party game for horrible people" brought in $71,145 with their post-Thanksgiving sale. But their offerings were sparse. Very sparse. 

As in, they sold literally nothing. Not even their own product.

"This year we offered our customers the ultimate Black Friday experience - the ability to buy nothing from us for $5. We took our entire store offline, and put up a simple payment form where people could give us $5," reads a statement on their website. 

And an overwhelming amount of people obliged. Nearly 12,000 individuals blindly threw their hard-earned cash at the online offer in exchange for nothing. Literally nothing. 

The company is known for mocking holiday sales hype with elaborate pranks, including selling actual poop to over 30,000 customers last November and launching their notorious "12 Weeks of Holiday B***S***" campaign in 2013. 

Though the cards may be against humanity, the company isn't -- they've donated nearly $4 million to charitable organizations since 2012. 

Except this Black Friday, things were different. The company says it kept the money and distributed it to their employees instead, to spend it however they please. But don't break out your pitchforks and torches just yet. Many of them paid off student loans, or donated to refugee support organizations and Planned Parenthood.

Check out the full list of their hilarious and heartfelt plans for the cash here. 

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Authors of dystopian fiction will tell you they aren’t imagining the future, but using otherworldly scenarios to throw harsh realities of the present into relief. Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy shows us the detriments of climate change, and the false intimacies that can be constructed through video games and online relationships. The Hunger Games chastises gluttony and constant cataloging. Divergent warns us that othering others can only cause calamity.

One artist working actively to infuse visions of the future into scenes from the present is Simon Stålenhag, whose narrative paintings have recently been collected into a book, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign. The paintings in Tales from the Loop show children and adolescents traipsing across gray plains, energetic in spite of their glum surroundings. Power lines and radio towers dot the skyline, alongside foreign machines, hefty and ominous.

That Stålenhag’s imagined robots stand beside clusters of desktop computers, scoreboards and hatchbacks makes their existence that much more believable. “Look what we’ve created,” he seems to suggest. “Imagine what else we can create.”

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Stålenhag explained that his simultaneously dramatic and intimate settings come from his lifelong tendency to treat observation like a job. “I spend a tremendous amount of time walking with my camera taking photos of everything,” he said.

Those walks, which Stålenhag has taken since he was a kid, wound around the Swedish countryside, where he found beauty even in the dark and craggy winter months. When it was too cold to explore, he stayed inside and watched sci-fi movies directed by Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott and James Cameron. “We roamed the winter landscapes pretending we were escaping velociraptors or fighting aliens,” Stålenhag said.

“The Terminator” and “Aliens” weren’t the painter’s only influences. At an early age, he took an interest in birds and wildlife, and the Swedish painters who depicted them gracefully: Lars Jonsson, Bruno Liljefors and Gunnar Brusewitz. Stålenhag credits these painters for his own foray into the field, and their influence is clear. Alongside unmoving machinery, his scenes are flecked with birds in motion, with blades of grass swaying with the breeze.

“Nothing feels more rewarding to me than when people tell me my pictures bring back childhood memories,” Stålenhag said of his quotidian settings. “All those mundane spare moments in life that nobody ever talks about. I feel they need to be captured. And the science-fiction elements come in naturally. Those things were constantly occupying my mind growing up, so putting giant robots in those mundane scenes -- I still feel it's true to my experience.”

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A stunning new portrait series reveals an up-close glimpse of the germs growing in New York City's subway cars.

Brooklyn-based artist Craig Ward rode the city's 22 subway lines this past summer and used sterilized sponges to collect bacterial samples from hand rails, seats and other surfaces. He pressed the bacteria into petri dishes coated with agar, incubated them and then photographed them at various stages of development.

Ward identified some harmless bacteria that are typically found in human saliva, sweat and skin. For instance, about 75 percent of what he imaged was bacteria native to a human hand, he said. But he also found some more disturbing bacterial species, such as E. coli and a few strains of staphylococcus, New York magazine reported.

A study published in the journal Cell Systems earlier this year showed that more than 500 species of bacteria, including some from foods and some known to cause illness, can be found in the Big Apple's subways.

"I just think they make for an excellent visual analogy for the diversity of the city at large," Ward told HuffPost.

"And I hope, after the initial wince, that people will find a little beauty in there," he said. "It’s only natural, though, that people are taking more away from the contents of the dishes as opposed to the images, but I think as a body of work they make for an interesting and memorable series of photographs."

Scroll down to see some of the bacteria featured in Ward's series, "Subvisual Subway."

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On Saturday, adult film star Stoya publicly accused fellow porn performer and ex-boyfriend James Deen of raping her. Stoya's tweets, frank and to the point, have sent a shockwave through the porn community.

While she has received numerous messages of support from fans and fellow members of the porn industry including Joanna Angel, Tori Lux and Ashley Fires (both allege that Deen violated them in the past), Stoya's revelation has also elicited backlash on social media. 

Her tweets, and Deen's subsequent response insisting that her allegations are "false and defamatory," have split fans and admirers into two camps: Team Stoya and Team James Deen. Of course, we can't know with absolute certainty what's happening behind the scenes. All we have is Stoya's accusation and Deen's denial.

But what we do know for sure is that our perception of rape and rape victims, even amidst so much discourse about slut-shaming and rape culture, still excludes sex workers. For every message of support that Stoya has gotten over the last few days, there is an accusatory message that either questions her claims or condemns her for coming forward.

She's been asked why it took her so long to say something, why she chose to tweet the revelation rather than report it to the police (although we don't know whether she filed a report or not), and why content featuring Deen is still on her site. There have been suggestions that she is lying, possibly to get back at her ex-lover (Stoya and Deen broke up in 2014, after dating for at least a year). Some people have even suggested that because Stoya is a porn star, the idea that she was raped is dubious. 

Well let's get some (rather obvious) things straight. Yes, a person can be raped by their significant other. Yes, sex workers can be raped. Not pressing charges or filing a police report right after experiencing sexual assault doesn't mean a rape victim is lying. Rape victims should not be put on trial when they step forward, and their sexual history, profession, or relationship to their alleged abuser should not dictate whether we believe them or not. And no, a legal conviction of the rapist should not be the only reason to believe a rape victim who speaks out. 

The court of law should be left to decide the legal ramifications of Stoya's accusation. But the choice of whether or not to dismiss her because she has sex on-camera for money is in our hands. 

After Stoya's tweets went out, The Frisky Editor-in-Chief Amelia McDonnell-Parry wrote eloquently about why she believes Stoya, and why she has chosen to end Deen's sex advice column for the site, writing: 

The court of public opinion is not a court of law , and I don’t need Stoya or any woman to ‘prove’ that she has been raped for me to believe her. Women who come out as rape victims are far, far, far too often not believed. This is especially true of women who work in the sex industry, with people actually wondering aloud if porn stars can be raped.

Having sex for a living doesn't mean you can't be raped, or you should "expect" sexual aggression. And James Deen's so-called "feminist porn star" persona should not absolve him of scrutiny when multiple women say he has violated them. It's not outside the realm of possibility that there are men who cultivate feminist personas in public in order to use those personas, and the power that those personas give them, as leverage for abuse in their private lives. 

As McDonnell-Parry wrote, we need to believe women. We need to believe sex workers. We need to believe those who bravely come forward with everything to lose and nothing to gain.

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WASHINGTON -- Since Freddie Gray’s death after a “rough ride” in police custody, the nation has become familiar with the systemic problems facing Baltimore.

Charm City’s school system is, essentially, segregated; the police routinely harass civilians and the city’s government prevents them from speaking publicly about the alleged facts of civil suits they file in response. This is the same police force that poorly handled the protests and riots that rocked the city following Gray’s funeral on April 27.

The western portion of the city, which includes Gray's neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester, is home to over half of all people released from Maryland's prison system each year. The violent crime rate in the neighborhood is 23 incidents per 1,000 residents -- almost double the city's rate as a whole and six times the national rate. More than half of the area's residents ages 16 to 64 are out of work, and many people end up with minor drug convictions.

R&B group Dru Hill wants to address that by doing what they do best -- making music. “Change,” a new song from the group, which rose to prominence in the '90s, discusses some of the most high-profile cases of extrajudicial killings of unarmed black children and teens -- including 12-year-old Tamir Rice, 18-year-old Michael Brown and 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

The group decided to release the song on Monday to coincide with the start of the first of six trials of officers charged in Gray’s death.

Along with the release, the group is launching #BMoreNow, an international campaign dedicated to facilitating change by encouraging conversations addressing the most debilitating issues facing communities -- such as poverty, racial discrimination, poor educational opportunities and health care access. 

Dru Hill is also partnering with several Baltimore-area businesses including The Fudgery, the fudge shop where they were discovered, which is creating an exclusive fudge flavor to raise money for Baltimore; The Stokey Project, an entertainment company that aims to inspire people to use their talents to succeed and is led by Carmichael "Stokey" Cannady, a former drug dealer-turned-activist; and the Baltimore Community Fund. The group will send all proceeds from “Change” to the fund’s Endowment for Neighborhoods, as well as other charities over the course of 2016.

The Huffington Post talked with Mark "Sisqó" Andrews, Larry "Jazz" Anthony, Tamir "Nokio" Ruffin and Antwuan "Tao" Simpson, all of whom grew up in Baltimore, about the song and the future they would like to see for their city. 

What inspired this song?

Nokio: We were out of town on the days when everything first started happening and I was sitting in my room ... and I was like, “Man, we gotta do something. What can we do?” One of the ideas we came [up] with was doing the song and it was really just watching TV, growing up in the neighborhood, you know, experiencing different things and just kind of like -- it was just like a burst of emotion came out.

Is there anything in particular about Freddie Gray’s death that resonated with any of you?

Nokio: Growing up in Baltimore, you see different things. Like I said, the neighborhood that everything happened [in] just happened to be the neighborhood that I grew up in and that we used to rehearse in. It’s just one of those things that, after a while, enough is enough. And regardless of how people feel across the board, when it comes down to unrest and things like that -- all that we know at this point is that something happened while he was in police custody.

And now we’re gonna have a chance to get all the facts [in the trial] and see what happened and hopefully, along with that, begin to have a discussion about these incidents and what we can do between community members and police to just have it cease now. Things have been going on for too long … and now’s the time to start some healing and some changes.

That’s one of the things that has stuck out to me the most about Freddie Gray’s case. The public knows absolutely nothing at this point. So, what do you hope this song will add to the police brutality narrative? Or just the conversation that we’re having in this country right now?

Sisqo: One of the reasons I think it resonated, this kind of piggybacks to what Nokio said, about kind of feeling like enough is enough. I can recall being in different parts of the world and seeing different cases of police brutality and every time they would mention … where it happened, I would think to myself, “Please don’t let it be Baltimore.” And soon as I heard it was Baltimore, I said, “Uh oh. It’s about to go down.”

Our city -- most of the city is tough to come up in. And I know, firsthand, a lot of the youth programs we used to have growing up aren’t around anymore, don’t have funding or even have a facility to put these kids in. I just felt like they were just looking for something to do. And when the emotions of this case ran high, [that] made it really difficult for those young kids.

I think the only thing that really kind of got to me was that our families [live] in that Baltimore, Maryland, area. And we were calling because the way it was portraying us on the media was as if the entire city was burning, but it just so happened to be the neighborhood where Nokio lived and where we used to go to rehearse every day.

Nokio: The biggest thing is to start to have a narrative. Like if there could be more understanding on both sides -- understanding from police officers that work the inner-city neighborhoods, understanding the neighborhood that you’re in and the things that happen, getting out and knowing the people. We won’t have to walk around -- especially inner-city youth -- as soon as I see a police officer, I feel like something bad is gonna happen. That’s not a good place to start. And that’s a feeling that we’ve all had since we were kids.

Sort of when you’re in kindergarten and third grade and you see “Officer Friendly” and it’s like, “Oh, maybe I want to be a police officer.” Then you go out and get a little bit older and you’re in your neighborhood and get harassed. Or you have a family member that’s assaulted unnecessarily … The generation now, they don’t wanna hear any talk about anything. Like Sisqo was saying with the youth programs being gone, education being bad, just nothing to do -- it’s like, OK, it’s time for some change. It’s time for something to happen. And if you’re not going to see that in yourself, then we’re gonna make you see it.

There has to be a point where somebody says, we’re gonna break the cycle and we’re really gonna get in here and try to figure out how we can have better community relations so that we can bring back some of the things like the police athletic league … and other things like the rec center that give another direction to their energy so that youth don’t feel like the only way you gone hear me is if I go out here and I really make some noise. It shouldn't have to get to that point.

Based off the lyrics, it looks like y’all are taking a very humanizing approach because, as we all know -- especially in cases of police brutality, black people are not really seen as human. I don’t know if y’all read what Darren Wilson had to say about Mike Brown but he was basically talking about how Brown was this supernatural phenomenon who just had really superhuman strength. Do y’all have any comment on this idea that black people aren’t seen as people?

Nokio: It’s part of the perception that comes from not being in the neighborhood and around us. To not understand where you are and the people that you’re around, there’s gonna be a disconnect and there is gonna be some type of perception that’s not reality. That in context of police brutality is only going to dwindle down and eventually cease with having people come in and understand that all of us aren’t criminals or criminals-in-training. A lot of the kids out here expressing themselves the way they are -- they're very intelligent and have ideas and they just wanna be heard. So if people get the chance to be heard by people [who] don’t understand [them], maybe that will begin to take away part of that stereotype.

Sisqo: Also not having a car and having to walk to the bus stop every day makes you pretty strong [laughs]. People who are underprivileged build more than just character.

You’re right, I feel you. My next question is broader and more visionary. What changes would you like to see in Baltimore?

Sisqo: I would like to see us figure out a way to … have a couple more youth programs, a couple more people step up and sponsor more things for the youth instead of giving up on them. [And] figure out a way to give them something to do to channel that energy. The arts and music are great ways as well as sports. I know that several times before, I’ve bought football uniforms for my old high school. They actually called me last week about being inducted into their music hall of fame -- that’s kind of cool.

But, for me, I would just really like to see more of a concerted effort to help the youth instead of giving up on them.

Nokio: Definitely seeing money go back into education here instead of having schools closing, and overcrowded and not enough teachers. A lot of schools in the inner city, I can remember a few years ago they did a documentary on HBO about me and Jazz’s old high school, Frederick Douglass -- which is actually the high school that a lot of these kids came from when they started rioting at Mondawmin Mall … That’s a big part along with seeing money come into neighborhoods for people who want to open up businesses in their own neighborhood and possibly offer jobs to the youth in the neighborhood. So not only would they be able to work, they wouldn’t have to go way across town and have things interfere with school.

Jazz: Back in the day, you always heard the saying “It takes a village to raise a child.” And I think that whole personal ownership of the community is lost. From your neighborhood watch to … your rec center -- there were so many things included in what was going on that a lot of the new youth that were in the community were known by name. Even the police officers there had a relationship with the business owners there and some of the elders in the community.

It seems everything has been desensitized … We need some positive, creative things to get these kids involved because they don’t believe in nothing anymore. A lot of talk has been given and no action. At the same time you got so many kids dying -- they not really up for a whole bunch of talking at all. Like Sisqo was saying, you gotta be tough to live in the neighborhood, period. The cops really going hard at these kids because they’re not backing down, but at the same time it seems like the whole police force has become a gang. They complain about the kids but, shit, the whole force has become a gang itself. So, really, unification has to be met.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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There are any number of self help sites on the web prepared to assist people in the removal of freckles, but how often do we glorify the small brown spots? 

Photographer Alexandra Bochkareva, a self proclaimed "ginger," shoots most of her style portraits with red-haired, freckled models to celebrate their beauty. Bochkareva told The Huffington Post that she finds the freckled models' faces to be "very impressive," and adds that her grandmother, mother and sisters are all freckled.

Picking up photography in 2012 after the birth of her child, Bochkareva photographed friends and family members who live in and around Saint Petersburg, Russia, building quite an impressive portfolio of stylized portraits based on models of the red-haired persuasion. Check out her amazing imagery below.

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The couples who said their "I dos" over Thanksgiving weekend had a whole lot to be grateful for this year -- including their brand new husbands and wives!

Check out some gorgeous photos from their celebrations below: 

If you go to a wedding or get married yourself, hashtag your photos #HPrealweddings or e-mail one to us afterwards so we can feature it on the site!

For photos from other real weddings in 2015, check out the slideshow below:

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In a time of religious tension and violence, the Baha'i Faith stands out as a tradition that emphasizes the essential unity of humanity.

Less than 200 years old, the Baha'i Faith has rich and beautiful traditions to offer its followers. The religion traces its inception to two primary founders -- Siyyid ‘Alí-Muhammad, who came to be known as the Báb (meaning “the Gate” in Arabic) and Bahá’u’lláh, who carried on the Báb's message of peace. Both men were born in the land that is now Iran and professed to bring a vision of spiritual unity to the world.

The Baha'i Faith centers around several key beliefs, including the oneness of all world religions, the inherent goodness of human beings, the fundamental equality of all sexes, and the importance of education.

Despite their dedication to this peaceful faith, Baha'is have experienced persecution in Iran, Egypt and several other countries around the world. 

If you're seeking to explore the Baha'i Faith more deeply, you've come to the right place. This week, our ReligionReads series features essential books on Baha'i spirituality that both practitioners and religious seekers can use to learn more about this peaceful tradition. 

Are there any books that we missed? Tell us in the comments below. And check out our other ReligionReads lists on Sikhism, Paganism, Seeker Spirituality and Hinduism.

Thanks to the Office of Public Affairs for the Bahá'ís of the United States and Baha'i organizer Cynthia Davis for contributing to this list. 

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The remaining Los Angeles Lakers players wrote their own poem in response to Kobe Bryant's poem, in which he announced his retirement.

---------

Dear Kobe,

From the moment

You started shooting this season

After you had no interest in meeting us

or trying to recruit talent

We knew one thing was real:

You need to go. Immediately.

Nothing against your legacy

Nothing against you as a person

You just make it so that we can't win basketball games

Therefore our jobs are meaningless.

We were six year olds too

Dreaming of winning basketball games

Not being part of a better-paid Washington Generals.

We've played through your airballs and turnovers

We've passed you the ball knowing you'd miss

Not because we wanted to

But because YOU kept shouting for the ball

Barking "I got it! I'm Kobe Bryant!"

We did that for YOU

Also because if we didn't, we might get fired.

You made us all want to play basketball

and we will always love you for that

But, Christ, you said yourself that you aren't a good basketball player

This season will be garbage because of you

Our fans can take another bad season

The franchise will continue to make money

But OUR CAREERS are dependent on having good stats, particularly

+/- ratings, and you chucking shots, not passing the ball, and blowing

games makes it impossible for us to negotiate future contracts.

And that's NOT OK

You need to let go.

You have so much money.

And some of us wont have jobs after this season.

And we both know, no matter what we say

You will play out the rest of this season

And take 20 minutes waving to the crowd after shooting 3-45

Zero assists

Or, God forbid, being on the court during crunch time

Ball in your hands

5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1

Stop the bleeding,

The Rest Of The 2015-16 Los Angeles Lakers 

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No literary fandom possesses a blessing or a curse (shall we say “hex”?) quite like J.K. Rowling.

Harry Potter has concluded, and the author is still out there making noise. She’s charming on Twitter; she’s not afraid to weigh in on rugby or Scottish politics or whether Ron and Hermione will need hefty doses of Amortentia to make their marriage work.

While her writing career has since veered toward more adult fare, and the "Harry Potter" movie series has receded into the rearview mirror, her enduring affection for Harry Potter is palpable, and not just through the rambling online clubhouse, Pottermore, which she built to ply fans with brand new Easter eggs and tidbits about the magical world.

She’ll Apparate into your Twitter feed to let you know what tuition at Hogwarts cost, that she’s secretly been pronouncing Voldemort with a silent ‘t’ this whole time, and, most recently, why she had Harry name his son after Severus Snape. (Apparently this last puzzle had been stumping readers for years, as Snape and Harry weren’t exactly bosom buddies.)

Each authorial revelation throws fans into a tizzy of joy (see, Rowling agreed all along!) or dismay (wait, how could she just change the terms like this??). Even her disquisition on Harry’s naming choice met significant pushback, though Occam’s Razor would have suggested that the answer was “because he loved Harry’s mother enough to die for Harry and the good of the wizarding world,” as Rowling herself argued.

Many were suspicious of this argument -- Snape had been too cruel to Harry and his friends over the years for him to give that tainted name to his own child, they rejoined. It just DOESN’T MAKE SENSE.

Twitter fracas achieved. Mischief managed.

Rowling has become the puckish Peeves of the Potter fandom, popping in to disrupt ships or upset theories or spark controversies. Were there gay people at Hogwarts? Jewish ones? How many students went there, anyway? Why couldn’t everyone see Peter Pettigrew on the Marauder’s Map?? She rarely passes up an opportunity to fill in a gap, satisfy a reader’s curiosity or a journalist’s probe. And each time, we lose our collective minds.

Now, like any author, Rowling has every right to comment on her books and the characters she created. We all have that right, actually -- that’s what happens when a book is published. Somewhere between the words on the page and the rich world in our minds, private magic works within each of us, bringing new insights and leaps of imagination to bear on the people and places dreamed up by the author.

Then we come together to squabble over whether Hermione might ultimately regret choosing Ron instead of Harry (never!), or why Harry would ever name a child after a teacher who bullied him remorselessly, or possible plugs for plot holes, and these discussions are where we stretch our powers as readers. We learn to feel ownership over our thoughts and how to resolve gaps or ambiguities left by black-and-white text. Sometimes we even learn we just disagree with certain authors. That’s fine, even though it can be frustrating, especially when that author is as big-time as Rowling.

Her comments aren’t Imperius curses, however; they don’t control anything. Her constant "new revelations" are only a problem if we upset the applecart ourselves every time she pops out and says “Boo!”

Pronounce Voldemort however you want. Spin a theory that Harry named his son after Snape because the Potions master secretly loved him and protected him the whole time. The wizardry of literature is that you don’t have to listen to anything or anyone -- even the author -- just lose yourself between the pages of a book you love.

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The Eiffel Tower is going green to commemorate the climate talks that began this week in Paris.

The color comes from images of trees projected onto the famed tower. People can contribute trees, which cost 10 euros, via the mobile app or the website of the installation. Even better: for every tree purchased, a real tree will be planted in area affected by deforestation.

Trees will be projected every day through December 3rd from 6 P.M. to 1 A.M. The project, called "1 Heart 1 Tree," was designed by artist Naziha Mestaoui.

See photos below:

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