Ripped from the Headlines: March 2020: This Week In Culture: February 29–March 6, 2020

The Dixie Chicks released the first single from their new album, their first record in 14 years. Titled Gaslighter, the song was co-written by the band and the record's producer Jack Antonoff. The full album drops on May 1. Archive has suitably ancient roots, going all the way back to the Greek word archeion, meaning "public office." That became archivum in Latin, and then came to English via French.

Matt Reeves, director of the upcoming The Batman film, released a few photos of the new Batmobile, which looks like a nine-year old's drawing of a 1970s muscle car. Cowl originally described the hooded robes worn by monks. Most appropriately for this subject, these days cowl can refer to two types of hood: the kind that covers your head, and also to the housing of an engine.

Neutron stars, the ultra-dense remnants of exploded giant stars, fit the mass of our sun into an area only a few miles in diameter. While their origins are well understood, little is known about their interiors. New data from the NICER (Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer) telescope is helping scientists determine how the insides of these mysterious bodies are structured, with subatomic particles mashed together by inconceivably intense gravity.

Louise Erdrich's new novel The Night Watchman released this week. Her seventeenth novel, it tells the story of a 1953 legal battle between the Turtle Mountain Chippewa and the U.S. government, as the tribe fought to keep the land they were granted under a treaty. Peccare is Latin for "sin," so impeccable literally means "without sin" but we use it to refer to something that's perfect, pristine, or flawless.

The Booksellers, a documentary about the world of antiquarian book dealers, opens this week. As more and more of our culture and writing take digital forms, the filmmakers wanted to show the importance of books as physical objects with stories beyond those held between their covers. Occult comes from the Latin occultus, meaning "secret" or "hidden."

Rapper Megan Thee Stallion is suing her record label, which is run by former baseball star Carl Crawford. She claims that her contract is unfair, and that the label is not paying her what she is owed. Though the suit has not been settled, she did win a restraining order allowing her to release a new record, titled Suga, this week.

Physicist Freeman Dyson died at 96. Though he was most famous for imagining the Dyson Sphere, something a highly advanced civilization might construct, his most important work was in the subatomic world of particle physics. He also theorized about the possibility of encoding human consciousness onto matter, allowing our minds to live forever.

No Time To Die, the next James Bond movie, had its opening delayed until fall because of the COVID-19 epidemic. Some of the worst-hit countries are huge markets for films, and without those audiences a $200 million movie like this would have a much harder time making a profit. People talk about the "return" on an investment — the money that comes back to you after your initial expense — and revenue is French for "return."

The Milwaukee Bucks could win over 70 games this season, something only done twice before in NBA history. League MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo is on track to have the highest Player Efficiency Rating (PER) of all time this year. The Bucks also have the best defense in the league, and fans are excited at their prospects for winning a championship. Athwart is an archaic way of saying "across." To thwart something is to block it, like putting a barrier across a path.

Midwestern cooking is sometimes stereotyped as being simple and heavy, but a new generation of chefs are bringing fresh energy and imagination to the region's cuisine without sacrificing its identity as comfort food. Waves of immigrants from around the world over the last few decades have transformed the culinary landscape, adding all sorts of flavors and influences, and chefs are winning awards and gaining national reputations.