The Morning News https://themorningnews.org/ The Morning News en themorningnews.org Copyright 2025 2025-05-13T14:41:00+00:00 Tuesday headlines: Dance dance evolution /p/tuesday-headlines-dance-dance-evolution#id33391 TMN is taking the rest of the week off for technical improvements. See you on Monday!

Researchers attempting to explain why the universe exists are studying neutrinos in underground "cathedrals to science." / BBC News

New therapeutic strategies for cancer are beginning to emerge, "providing safer, more targeted delivery directly to tumors." / Undark Magazine

Chinese scientists have a new way of extracting uranium from seawater. / New Scientist

In Shanghai, commuters can propose, vote on, and activate new bus lines in as little as three days. / Sixth Tone

"The more you confess to the robot, the harder you'll find it to actually subject yourself to the rawness and unpredictability of human relationships." Eleven things to hate about artificial intelligence. / Young Vulgarian

"Using AI isn't sexy. Being impressed by AI isn't sexy." A woman advises single men to stay away from AI. / InsideHook

Related: Things learned about OpenAI's Sam Altman after repeated watchings of him in a kitchen. / The Financial Times

The India-Pakistan ceasefire is thought to be a victory for Pakistan, for once again "hypenating" the two countries. / Scroll

Even President Trump's supporters see Qatar's plane gift as a bribe. / CNN

See also: Bozo the Clown goes behind the scenes on the set of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in 1971. / YouTube

Apple takes early steps to enable people to control their iPhones with neural signals. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Nicholas Kristof says he's never received so many death threats after exposing the amount of underage content on mainstream pornography sites (content warning). / The New York Times [+]

A trans man relates what it's like to experience typical male social isolation. / Kottke

Toupees, now called "hair systems," are making a comeback via millennial and Gen Z guys. / GQ

A poem about things you should and shouldn't tell your kids. / Poetry Foundation

A good overview of contemporary (mostly mainstream) dance and club music. / The New York Times [+]

Some gorgeous photographs depict a bike trip from Greece to Georgia. / The Radavist

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]]> 2025-05-13T14:41:00+00:00 Monday headlines: Though this be madness, yet there be breakfast in’t /p/monday-headlines-though-this-be-madness-yet-there-be-breakfast-int#id33390 Scientists say the universe is expected to decay in 10⁷⁸ years, "much sooner than previously thought." / Phys.org

Meanwhile, the United States and China agree to a 90-day pause on tariffs. / Reuters

Regarding the new foreign plane for President Trump, the crypto deals and golf courses—is it all so much corruption-as-entertainment? / Semafor, The Wall Street Journal [+], The Guardian

With a small increase to a tourist tax, Hawaii is set to raise funds to prevent fires like those that devastated Maui—and it's trying to make polluters pay, too. / Heated

A historian says because voting is compulsory in Australia, politicians have to focus on issues. / Bolts

A new Coca-Cola ad, created using artificial intelligence, bizarrely promotes J.G. Ballard and still gets him wrong. / 404 Media

Max Read: AI companies and corporate AI researchers are "orienting themselves entirely in service of private profit." / Read Max

If millions of international visitors visit Los Angeles for the upcoming Olympics, "it will be at their own peril." / Torched

Unrelated: You are statistically more likely to die on your birthday, but it's complicated. / The Pudding

In professional tennis, the Italian Open still doesn't offer equal prize money for men and women. / Bounces

See also: The architects and artists who built the Fascist "Foro Italico" sought parallels with previous Roman empires. / The Second Serve

John Cameron Mitchell goes on tour to teach young people how to be punk. / The New York Times [+]

A man recreates Wallace & Gromit's automated breakfast machine. / The Kid Should See This

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]]> 2025-05-12T14:35:00+00:00 Friday headlines: King’s lead hat /p/friday-headlines-kings-lead-hat#id33389 "Some of what Trump calls good news, like the falling price of oil, is actually caused by bad news, which is the world expecting the possibility of a global recession." / The Washington Post [+]

Already an ethical catastrophe, Trump's private dinner for top memecoin holders is becoming even suspect, as most of the likely guests are based outside the US. / Citation Needed

"The daughter shrieks another horrible horrible horrible shriek, communicating the non-communicable." Witnessing a federal kidnapping in Worcester. / Welcome to Hell World

A new analysis posits that Kamala Harris didn't lose because Biden voters stayed home, but instead from the influx of new voters who went for Trump. / TouchGrass

"His manager said he was considered the most productive member of the team." When North Korean operatives get jobs as remote IT workers to infiltrate Western companies. / WIRED

The president of the American Federation of Teachers says "college for all" no longer works in the United States. / The New York Times [+]

See also: "College is just how well I can use ChatGPT at this point." / New York Magazine

"If a freshman in college did once what the New York Times does on a regular basis they may be expelled." Plagiarism is just part of mainstream media's business model. / Splinter

A slop farmer explains on a private livestream how he targets women over 50 on Facebook in the belief that they're more likely to cross-post AI garbage to Pinterest. / Futurism

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider have devised a new method of measuring the transmutation of lead into gold nuclei—which exist for only a fraction of a second. / Phys.org

Fifty years ago today, Brian Eno recorded "Discreet Music," and 50 years later you have an ambient music button on your iPhone. / Andrew Womack

Musical equipment owned by legendary producer and DJ Andrew Weatherall, who passed away in 2020, is currently up for auction. / Soundgas

An ever-growing collection of tiny interactive drum machines. / 10,000 Drum Machines

The magic of kitchen objects, such as "the bowl you keep but can't actually bear to use because it reminds you too strongly of the person who gave it to you." / The Guardian

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]]> 2025-05-09T19:20:00+00:00 Thursday headlines: Bread between the lines /p/thursday-headlines-bread-between-the-lines#id33388 In India and Pakistan, both countries "know that the real danger is the specter of uncontrolled escalation." / Dawn

Experts weigh whether India's new rules for satellite internet operators will thwart Amazon's Project Kuiper and Elon Musk's Starlink. / rest of world

Stockholm scoffs at a US letter demanding the Swedish city desist from "DEI" practices. / Newsweek

Female-led businesses in Africa are struggling to raise funds because of President Trump's anti-DEI push. / Semafor

See also: Lully Snake is said to be re-writing the rules of Tunisian rap "for feminist rebellion." / Africa Is a Country

Palestinians seem correct to worry that Israel may be laying plans to annex the West Bank. / The New York Times [+]

"She doesn't even know the donor's name, nor does she want to." Germans are buying kidneys in Kenya. / Der Spiegel

ICE appears to target labor leaders in raids on New York farms. / The Intercept

At the National Institutes of Health, "it's very clear it's all cronyism going forward." / The Atlantic [+]

Bill Gates plans to spend more than $200 billion over the next 20 years to fight poverty, malnutrition, "and other global scourges." / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Trump's proposal for a US sovereign wealth fund repackages his favorite, risky tactic: Borrow heavily against meager assets, then gamble. / The Financial Times [+]

The author behind McMansion Hell names the new White House decor as "Regional Car Dealership Rococo." / Patreon

Unrelated: A new Japanese wrapping paper turns your presents into bread. / Spoon & Tamago

"Internet roadtrip" is a multiplayer online game where the web drives a car together. / Neal.fun

Did you know? Planetariums are one hundred years old. / The Conversation

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]]> 2025-05-08T13:51:00+00:00 Wednesday headlines: Parasite squad /p/wednesday-headlines-parasite-squad#id33387 India launches missile strikes in several parts of Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled territory. / The Guardian

Pakistan claims to have shot down five Indian jets. / CNN

A hospital bombing raises concerns that South Sudan may return to civil war. / UN News

Immigration advocates warn of a potential mass immigration enforcement operation in DC this week. / NBC Washington

Is President Trump's "100% tariff" on foreign movies all because he didn't like Parasite winning the Academy Award for Best Picture? / GQ

Sam Thielman: The richest nation on earth is now "a racist reality show for one sad old bigot." / Forever Wars

See also: "The AI Slop Presidency." / 404 Media

A technology company announces doughnut-shaped motors that fit directly inside a vehicle's wheels. / dezeen

With Tesla sales dramatically down in Europe, the company's "gigafactory" in Germany seems likely "to be underutilized for some time." / Ars Technica

Food companies dislike an app used by millions, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr, that lets users scan products in grocery stores to learn about their nutritional quality. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Hot dogs eaten at ballparks are said to taste better because the buns are steamed. / The Takeout

A researcher says to spark creativity, you should read obituaries "and look for distant connections with your own life." / The MIT Press Reader

On YouTube: "48 Things Women Hear In A Lifetime (That Men Just Don't)" and "48 Things Men Hear In A Lifetime (That Are Bad For Everyone)." / Kottke

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]]> 2025-05-07T15:23:00+00:00 Tuesday headlines: Slippery pope /p/tuesday-headlines-slippery-pope#id33386 Latin America is reportedly the only place right now where traditional right-wing economics is on the upswing. / Semafor

Saudi Arabia's budget deficit jumped in the first quarter of 2025, driven by a sharp drop in oil revenues. / Arabian Gulf Business Insight

The conservative leader Friedrich Merz wins a parliament vote to become Germany's next chancellor. / BBC News

Details from the current conclave in Vatican City—from smear campaigns to dorm life—are said to rival the film Conclave. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

See also: Like model UN, but for pope selection—inside the University of Chicago's Italian Renaissance course where students LARP the conclave of 1492. / The New York Times [+]

An illustrated guide through a typical American home reveals how many products are made in China. / The New York Times [+]

The troubling sentiment at the heart of "Make America Healthy Again" is survival of the fittest—where death is a feature, not a bug. / The Verge

A "turbo roundabout" in California leads to a rise in car accidents. / The Times

Photographs from a 24-hour auto race where the cars can't cost more than $500. / NPR

Photo essay headline of the week? "Crazy Horny Mud Truckers." / VICE

See also: Vintage pictures of people and their underwear. / Flashbak

Contemporary book critics discuss "the sadomasochistic turn in contemporary criticism." / Pioneer Works

Digging into the "Protect The Dolls" conversation as a cultural stress test. / The Trend Report

In our cultural conversation, is the pickle to Gen Z what the avocado supposedly was to Millenials, "a passion and a personality?" / Eater

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]]> 2025-05-06T15:12:00+00:00 Monday headlines: Neighborhood threat /p/monday-headlines-neighborhood-threat#id33385 Israel has reportedly approved plans to seize control of the entire Gaza Strip and occupy the region for an indefinite period of time. / Associated Press

One of Pope Francis's final requests was to retrofit one of his popemobiles to provide frontline health care "for the children of Gaza." / BBC

Chartered planes are frequently used for deportations, which may explain why the New England Patriots' team plane has been making trips to Guantanamo Bay. / SNAKE

Jia Tolentino on our new fake reality: "There is now a category of things I see online which I register simply as indications that the world is slipping beyond my comprehension." / The New Yorker

A Telegram bot for generating nonconsensual porn is disturbingly popular, with more than 100,000 active monthly users. (Warning: Graphic descriptions.) / 404 Media

In a simulation, a company populated only with AI agents was (unsurprisingly) a disaster, and the best-performing model was "prohibitively expensive." / Futurism

"Quitting has brought a lot of the old joy back." How to—but more importantly, why you may want to—end your relationship with Spotify. / Hearing Things

How MLMs have flourished in the 21st century: "Technology makes it a lot easier to lie about the opportunity of a lifetime at scale." / Read Max

The US Chamber of Commerce is pushing the Trump administration to implement tariff exclusions for small businesses in order to "stave off a recession." / CNBC

See also: Kickstarter is offering creators a tool to add tariff charges to projects that are already fully funded. / 404 Media

"Shadden says the noise is worse at night. That's when the mine runs at full capacity, penetrating her walls with noise up to 106 decibels" Crypto mining is upending life in rural Texas. / The Nation

See also: Elon Musk's Austin neighbors are struggling, except for the one guy who flies a drone over the billionaire's property looking for city violations. / The New York Times [+]

Mark Zuckerberg's company statements "seem meant as matter-of-fact justifications but come across as confessions of the kinds of damage he is prepared to inflict." / Internal exile

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]]> 2025-05-05T20:55:00+00:00 Friday headlines: The best trade plans /p/friday-headlines-the-best-trade-plans#id33384 "At the heart of the 11-page agreement is a joint investment fund that is intended to help rebuild Ukraine once the Russian invasion...ends." What's in the US-Ukraine minerals agreement. / Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Experts cite a spike in postponed container ships previously set to arrive on the US West Coast as a sign that trouble is already looming. / WIRED

Whether it's seeing tariffs on receipts or, bizarrely, limiting the number of dolls a household can afford, MAGA wants to convince Americans to be happy with less. / The Dispatch

"On average, trade deals signed by the United States take 18 months to negotiate and 45 months to implement." The US is racing against time to solve its trade debacle. / The New York Times [+]

Americans disfavor impeachments because they're a challenge to institutional order—besides, without removal from office, impeachments mean little. / Good Politics/Bad Politics

NIH's autism registry may be scrapped, but the damage is already done, as families cancel medical appointments and ask for records to be destroyed. / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

See also: Misinformation is standard operating procedure for the Trump administration, which now wants to end NIH's research into misinformation. / Science

Trump's new executive order to defund NPR and PBS is not actually a thing that he can do because that money is appropriated by Congress. / WBUR

The Trump administration wants to halt $1 billion in mental health services for school districts, reversing bipartisan legislation with strong Republican support. / NPR

Rhode Island is the only state without a system for decertifying police officers—along with its secretive approach to tracking police misconduct, it's a dangerous combination. / The Public's Radio

"Perhaps it was more palatable to feel like I was losing him in installments; that I could say goodbye to each part as they left. Bye, legs; bye, feet; bye voice." Mariana Serapicos loses her dad to ALS. / Electric Literature

When bland, lookalike technology advertising was the norm in the 1980s and '90s, PC Connection stood out with Erick Ingraham's anthropomorphic raccoons. / Technologizer

Find a sunny cafe with maps that depict surrounding buildings' shade cover right now. / Sunseekr

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]]> 2025-05-02T16:43:00+00:00 Thursday headlines: World trade hallucination /p/thursday-headlines-world-trade-hallucination#id33383 Tesla board members reportedly spent the last month looking for a new CEO to replace Elon Musk. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

For its part, Tesla denies the story. / The Guardian

Plunging trade means the port of Los Angeles will see shipping volume drop 35% next week. / CNBC

A tour through the trade question, from bottled water to smartphones, bikes, onions, and tuna. / Scope of Work

See also: What President Trump's first 100 days meant for truck drivers and sex workers in Africa. / Goats and Soda

Los Angeles will pay the largest sex abuse settlement in US history: $4 billion to victims abused as children in county-run foster homes. / BBC News

A man relates discovering the benefits of psychotherapy by describing his traumatic past to ChatGPT. / Consider the Oyster

In recent interviews, President Trump is showing signs of being a hallucinating large language model. / techdirt

For some, using the internet to find friends is their preferred means of human connection, "characterized as 'the perfect people for me.'" / The Free Press

The first 3D-printed Starbucks in the US is located in Brownsville, Texas. / New Atlas

Nike now sells sneakers that are deliberately dirty—and become cleaner the more you wear them. / GQ

Unrelated: A few supposed signs of contemporary "it bars," e.g., "the statement slab." / Punch

Pope Francis was the first non-Italian pontiff not to return to his homeland. "He was too Argentine." / The Buenos Aires Times

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]]> 2025-05-01T14:53:00+00:00 Wednesday headlines: The thin red wine /p/wednesday-headlines-the-thin-red-wine#id33382 Pakistan may reach the global April heat record of 122 degrees Fahrenheit this week. / The Washington Post [+]

India and Pakistan are said to be periously close to military conflict (once again). / Foreign Affairs

India pushes mining groups to pursue reserves in the "lithium triangle" between Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. / The Financial Times

See also: India is home to over 20% of the world's semiconductor design engineers. / rest of world

A call for artists to contribute to President Trump's "National Garden of American Heroes." / The Art Newspaper

Julia Angwin: Even if DOGE fails to reduce spending, it has successfully built a surveillance state "the likes of which we have never seen in the United States." / The New York Times [+]

Meanwhile, some details on the White House's "war on measurement." / Undark Magazine

"If you use Spotify to book bands, then I don't want to work with you." Why some musicians are saying no to streaming. / Hearing Things

OpenAI pulls a ChatGPT update for being "sycophant-y." / BBC News

Benj Edwards: In the age of AI slop, human creativity needs to be protected as a natural resource. / Ars Technica

Unrelated: On a website with a million chess boards, moving a piece moves it for everyone, instantly. / eieio.games

Every year in the US, the flu kills more than 36,000 people, some of whom were otherwise healthy, then suddenly succumbed to what's typically a benign illness. / The New York Times [+]

In Starr County, Texas, "everybody has somebody in their family" with dementia. / The Atlantic [+]

American girls are starting puberty about a year younger than they did in the 1970s. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

"Apples are unruly, sexually." For common fruits and vegetables, sex and gender are more fluid than the heterosexual gender binary. / Noema

For your weekly wanderlust, a guide to espresso bars in Da Nang, Vietnam. / Sprudge

See also: Restaurants in Paris often serve tourists cheaper wines than what they order. / Le Parisien

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]]> 2025-04-30T15:08:00+00:00 Tuesday headlines: Soccer Who /p/tuesday-headlines-soccer-who#id33381 Power is slowly returning after a massive power outage in Spain and Portugal. / The Guardian

Meanwhile, Spain's electrical grid recently ran entirely on renewable energy for the first time. / pv magazine

President Trump's meme coin has "eviscerated the boundary between private enterprise and government policy." / The New York Times [+]

A White House memo authorizes treatment at Guantanamo "that in practice amounts to torture." / Forever Wars

The Trump administration's cuts across government agencies heighten concerns about food security—and into the gap step free grocery stores. / Civil Eats

For non-MAGA types: Five-hundred words to stick on the back of your Tesla. / McSweeney's Internet Tendency

If you find yourself emitting exclamations of distress all day, author Elif Batuman suggests shouting "surfing" instead. / The Elif Life

One way to enact political action? "Become unscammable, an anti-con artist." / The Trend Report

Multiple studies say Gen Z is the worst at discerning fact from fiction on the internet. / Politico

The University of North Carolina encourages its student-athletes to work with consultants who will help monetize their social media. / The New York Times [+]

See also: Soccer clubs owned by American groups are set to sweep England's top three divisions. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

A help desk in Alabama still answers the public's calls after 70 years. / The Oxford American

The aesthetics of Hergé's Tintin are now public property. / College Towns

What it was like to work for Andy Warhol? "All summer I was soaring on a wave of adrenaline, drugs, alcohol and teen hormones." / Granta

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]]> 2025-04-29T12:02:00+00:00 Friday headlines: Hot priest summer /p/friday-headlines-hot-priest-summer#id33380 HHS says there won't be an autism registry, walking back NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya's controversial announcement from earlier this week. / STAT

As government and fringe groups—kind of the same thing right now—promote the pseudoscience of eugenics, geneticists must take a stand. / Nature

The Dept. of Government Efficiency is anything but: "Firings, re-hirings, lost productivity and paid leave of thousands of workers will cost upward of $135 billion." / The New York Times [+]

See also: By marking nearly four million people dead in SSA databases—without evidence—DOGE shattered the financial lives of many who are very much alive. / The Daily Beast

China is exploring the possibility of building a nuclear power plant on the moon by 2035, as part of its joint effort with Russia to establish a lunar research station. / Independent

This is fine: "Beijing recently asked South Korean companies not to ship products containing China's rare earth minerals to US defense firms." / Reuters

Pope Francis was a music fan—he even blessed one of his favorite shops following a renovation—so NPR made a playlist of his favorite songs. / Instagram, Spotify

See also: Obama Cinema, or a list of films that are "representational of an idealistic world in the mind's eye of American democrats." / Letterboxd

A seasteading enthusiast spends 120 days living in a fixed underwater habitat, breaking the previous world record of 100 days. / The New York Times [+]

See also: A reading list on the perpetual dream of floating cities. / Places Journal

How do conservation teams move endangered black rhinos? By dangling them upside down from a helicopter. / ZME Science

"I'm wondering if we're going to have an Endangered Species Act in four years." Anatomy of an extinction. / Mother Jones

If you've listened to the Telepathy Tapes podcast—or people have urged you to listen—you may be interested in an article basically debunking it. / The Cut

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]]> 2025-04-25T17:11:00+00:00 Thursday headlines: Kite of the living dead /p/thursday-headlines-kite-of-the-living-dead#id33379 Russia hits Kyiv with missiles and drones, one of the deadliest attacks on the capital since last year. / The Kyiv Independent

A tunnel between Denmark and Germany will link 90 individual segments, piece by piece, "like Lego bricks." / BBC News

Italy's transformation into "a recycling powerhouse" is credited to "individual change, collectivized." / Grist

A video from Norway shows a tree being turned into an eight-oared rowing boat using traditional methods. / aeon

See also: Los Angeles is said to be facing a massive tree crisis unless private interests step up. / Torched

GitHub code repositories support a whistleblower's allegations that a DOGE worker surreptitiously downloaded sensitive NLRB data. / Krebs on Security

Simon Goldstein and Peter N. Salib say the best path for both the US and China is to jointly back the world's best AI lab. / Lawfare

A new datase reveals how many African workers are "indirectly employed" by Big Tech, doing content moderation, customer service, and data annotation for AI models. / rest of world

Making the case for predistribution, i.e., sharing the wealth before AI-driven inequality takes hold. / Noema Mag

Unrelated: An interactive exercise in flying kites based on places' weather patterns. / A Cursor Is a Kite

Some thoughts about analyzing the different mobility patterns of women and men when it comes to designing shared mobility systems. / Knowable Magazine

After experiencing the downsides of contemporary dating, a woman puts a $100,000 bounty on her marriage. / Knowingless

Reading psychiatrist Irvin Yalom suggests we all have meaningful lives, "but we're just not sufficiently aware of them." / 3 Quarks Daily

See also: Some beautiful travel notebooks full of exquisite details. / Colossal

"An aesthetic once dismissed as 'metro' was now emblematic of self-optimization." The menswear guy explains the roots of the manosphere look. / Bloomberg [+]

The brief story of a missing Banksy painting—and the museum employee who stole it when he retired. / The Art Newspaper

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]]> 2025-04-24T13:48:00+00:00 Wednesday headlines: Child detective services /p/wednesday-headlines-child-detective-services#id33378 The trade war between Washington and Beijing looks good for African nations. / Semafor

From February, a round-up of China's top trading partners on the continent. / China Global South

Fourteen reasons why tariffs won't bring manufacturing back to the United States—among them: "most Americans are going to hate manufacturing." / Molson Hart

See also: Stefanie Stantcheva wins the John Bates Clark Medal in economics. / The American Economic Association

David Gate says El Salvador's mega-prison, aka the "Terrorism Confinement Center," should be called a concentration camp. / A Rebellion of Care

Markets respond to President Trump saying he'll back down on China (and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell), while Elon Musk steps away from DOGE. / The Wall Street Journal [+], Politico, NPR

Measles has infected more than 600 people in Texas and killed two school-aged children. / The Texas Tribune

American scientists submitted 32% more applications for overseas jobs in the last quarter than during the same period last year. / nature

Unrelated: Examples of scientists amusing themselves with papers like "Strapless Evening Gowns." / Ironic Sans

Half of American teens say social media has a negative effect on their peers, but only 14% think it negatively affects them personally. / Pew Research Center

A guide to deleting personal information on the internet using a free tool from Google. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

People are becoming popular on TikTok for reading out celebrity lawsuits line by line. / The Atlantic

Pinterest discourages young people from using its app during school hours. / The Verge

See also: Diane Keaton's "Pinterest house" in Los Angeles is up for sale. / Uncrate

In Victorian England, Scotland Yard was originally formed as a means to prevent crimes from happening. / Crime Reads

How did Athens become such a muddled concrete sprawl? Basically, by modernizing too quickly. / BBC News

Photographs of men and boys in cramped spaces. / It's Nice That

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]]> 2025-04-23T15:59:00+00:00 Tuesday headlines: Desert witness /p/tuesday-headlines-desert-witness#id33377 The dollar falls to a three-year low, as a trade war and threats against the Federal Reserve drive "Sell America" trades. / Semafor

Andrew Burmon: If the fig leaf of prestige falls, the upper middle class will discover how angry it is at "the misalignment of their expectations and their circumstances." / GQ

Bill Maher's recent account of his dinner with President Trump gets spoofed by Larry David. / The Guardian

Larry David: I can't stand having to remember every detail of every conversation. Hitler said he could relate—he hated that, too. / The New York Times [+]

Related: The story of how London's Imperial War Museum came to own an official portrait of Adolf Hitler. / The Art Newspaper

Scientists say they've discovered a new color called "olo." / LiveScience

An investigation finds the California Department of Motor Vehicles routinely allowing dangerous drivers to renew their licenses. / CalMatters

One way restaurants still get a boost from Covid? People ordering takeout, which shows up as higher productivity for kitchens. / NBER

"Ganking" spreads from China to the US: city dwellers attempting to forage in public parks. / Semafor

Unrelated: A new "sleepwear concept" from Japan uses embedded sound and lighting to promote sleep. / dezeen

Investors wonder if a buzzy autonomous-robot startup in Silicon Valley is hot air. / The Wall Street Journal

Some examples of human aesthetics that are already AI-seeming. / artdev

What's it like to have a Neuralink chip embedded in your brain? "It did feel like magic at first." / Men's Health

New York City's Frick Collection reopens to the public. / artsy

Pictures of street protests in New York from 1980 to 2000. / Flashbak

A new exhibition documents American photography's first 70 years. / BBC News

For your weekly wanderlust: A story of three friends who revitalized a crumbling desert resort and saved a town in the process. / Travel + Leisure

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]]> 2025-04-22T14:02:00+00:00 Monday headlines: All mod cons /p/monday-headlines-all-mod-cons#id33376 Pope Francis has died at 88, "the first [pope] in generations to make the Vatican feel less like a fortress and more like a field hospital." / Migrant Insider

The Bush administration argued Guantanamo should be beyond the reach of the courts; CECOT is the Trump administration's attempt at making that goal a reality. / Forever Wars

See also: El Salvador won't let a US senator inside its prison, but influencers are welcome to enter and film propaganda videos. / X

An investigation into the crypto grift Trump and his family are undertaking right now, along with signs that show it's going to get much worse. / Citation Needed

See also: "A little-known firm with investors linked to JD Vance, Elon Musk and Trump could get a piece of the federal expense card system—and its hundreds of millions in fees." / ProPublica

The faculties at the Big Ten consortium of US universities are aligning to create a "mutual defense compact" against Trump's attacks on higher education. / The Hill

In cases of aspiring tyrannies and the masses that oppose them, the group that's better coordinated wins out. / Programmable Mutter

What happened to the DOGE "five things" emails: Apparently nothing, except in one case where an employee responded with profanities. / The Washington Post [+]

"We will toast to our freedom and everything he did in that nameless era." How a famous Chinese author befriended his censor. / The Guardian

A study of texting habits finds that correspondents who use shorthand abbreviations are deemed "less sincere and far less worthy of a reply." / Fast Company

Unrelated: Sam Atman says users who include "please" and "thank you" in their ChatGPT messages cost OpenAI "tens of millions of dollars" in computing power. / Futurism

The iPhone has been losing its luster in China, where consumers are embracing Chinese brands for the tech or for patriotism, or at least to appear patriotic. / Rest of World

On last week's news about a distant planet's atmosphere containing signs of biological activity: Other researchers in the field of exoplanet biosignatures say the claims are far-fetched. / Nature

Rising CO2 levels from climate change can increase the amount of arsenic in rice, though the varieties you buy and how you cook it could reduce your exposure. / BBC

The latest in American preppers' home bunkers, which are replete with all modern conveniences, and often that means a concealed gun range. / The New York Times Magazine [+]

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]]> 2025-04-21T16:42:00+00:00 Thursday headlines: The bulk stops here /p/thursday-headlines-the-bulk-stops-here#id33375 Chinese President Xi Jinping wraps up a Southeast Asia tour to strengthen already robust trade relations. / The Associated Press

Goldman Sachs says a decoupling of the United States and China may cost the US $2.5 trillion. / The South China Morning Post

The World Trade Organization expects trade of merchandise between the two countries to drop by 80 percent this year. / axios

The CEO of a consumer products company says he's alarmed by anticipated shortages of transformers, air conditioners, and other complex goods. / X

Unrelated: Scientists in Sweden develop a battery that has the texture of toothpaste. / Gizmodo

An interactive guide to changes in the White House press briefing room. / The New York Times [+]

What if scrolling on social media is more "akin to an alcohol-induced blackout?" / Luke Burgis

Despite all of yesterday's details about Elon Musk manipulating the known and unknown mothers of his children, what remains unclear "is how many other women Musk has approached on Twitter to have his kids." / The Wall Street Journal [+], Jezebel

Some Relationship lessons from Erich Fromm's 1956 The Art of Loving. E.g., "wanting the other person to unfold 'as they are.'" / Philosophy Break

Unrelated: We are all living in the world porn made. / The Atlantic

For the first time, a colossal squid has been filmed in its natural habitat. / YouTube, NPR

Photographs from a trip through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by pack raft. / Patagonia

Photographs of Lenny Kravitz's lavish home in Paris. / Architectural Digest

An heir to the Porsche fortune stokes a class war over plans to build a private tunnel to his "cavernous" underground garage. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Notes from a visit to Costco in Europe. "I don't see someone in France buying that much mustard at once." / David Lebovitz Newsletter

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]]> 2025-04-17T13:46:00+00:00 Wednesday headlines: Spies like us, they really like us /p/wednesday-headlines-spies-like-us-they-really-like-us#id33374 A day in the life in northeastern Ukraine, where there are no signs Vladimir Putin wants to end his war. / The New York Times [+]

A whistleblower explains that as DOGE staffers exfiltrated data, someone in Russia followed them through the door. / NPR

Related: The EU issues burner phones to officials traveling to the US for fear of espionage. / The New Republic

From last month, a list of things possibly in store for us if President Trump keeps running the show. / Terra Nullius

An economist rates who's up and who's down right now in American politics. / The Pursuit of Happiness

A former congressman explains what representatives do all day. / Understanding Congress

Those gold medallions now hanging in the Oval Office are strikingly similar to items available on Alibaba for between $1 and $5 (before tariffs). / Sherwood

Companies that make their goods in the US struggle to sell Americans on domestic manufacturing. / Business of Fashion

Related: Fifty "Made-In-America" clothing and footwear brands. / Gear Patrol

The National Weather Service stops translating radio alerts for non-English speakers. / The Associated Press

Timothy Snyder: "It is easier to move people away from law than it is to remove law from people." / Bluesky

A timeline for how Israel has used humanitarian aid to punish Palestinians in Gaza for the last 17 months. / Al Jazeera

Tesla's 50-day average share price falls below its 200-day measure, aka a "death cross." / Semafor

Research suggests girls are being hit by a mental health crisis, but the problem is overshadowed by boys' struggles. / The Guardian

Explaining how "you won, Jane" became the UK's new "Keep Calm and Carry On." / Experimental History

Unrelated: "Ultra-poptimists" are said to believe that celebrities should always be profitmaxxing. / Culture: An Owner's Manual

Some photographs from the chaotic Minecraft Movie screenings in theaters. / Instagram

Portraits of Texas ranching communities by Alex Bek. / Booooooom

Some thoughts on the appeal of running a marathon. "When you go to extremes, new things happen?" / Interconnected

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]]> 2025-04-16T14:20:00+00:00 Tuesday headlines: Ghost-structuralism /p/tuesday-headlines-ghost-structuralism#id33373 The Nile's migratory birds are threatened by tourists' poaching habits—"Maltese hunters take everything in sight." / The New Arab

New technologies are helping to regrow Arctic sea ice, but they remain controversial. / Grist

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele says he can't return a mistakenly deported Maryland resident. / axios

On the same matter, the White House is following the Supreme Court's ruling "by ignoring it completely." / The Atlantic [+]

President Obama condemns President Trump's freezing of federal funds for Harvard. Steven Pinker calls it "truly Orwellian." / The Guardian, The New York Times [+]

Alex Ross: The word that best describes what the Trump regime is trying to do to Harvard is gleichschaltung, or, "bringing into line." / The Rest is Noise, Wikipedia

Trump's crackdown on foreign students is changing college journalism. / Inside Higher Ed

The IRS's top technology officers resign, seemingly over a plan to share data with the Department of Homeland Security. / NextGov

See also: "I wasted years of my life under the delusion that people could be convinced by rational argument." / Trying to Understand the World

Chick-fil-A, Instagram, and Nike are among teenagers' favorite companies. / businesswire

Philippe Starck says design is being taken over by "toxic" trends. / dezeen

From March, bad design sometimes makes people trust a website more—and buy more stuff. / Web Designer Depot

What if we made advertising illegal? "The machinery of mass delusion would lose its most addictive and toxic fuel." / Simone

Unrelated: Some theories on why AI company logos look like buttholes. / VelvetShark

An abandoned nuclear power plant gets repurposed as an advanced acoustics testing facility. / The Verge

An ode to roadside attractions: "Exactly how we found Dinoland is lost to me." / The Paris Review

Sixty minutes of observing people around a reservoir. "It's hard to get into any emotion when you got got." / Meditations in an Emergency

A round-up of purportedly haunted accommodations for people who love the paranormal. / Atlas Obscura

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]]> 2025-04-15T14:11:00+00:00 Monday headlines: Stay information /p/monday-headlines-stay-information#id33372 The man arrested for breaking into and setting a fire in the Pennsylvania governor's mansion planned to beat Gov. Shapiro with a small sledgehammer. / AP

The Trump administration is privately discussing how to "denaturalize American citizens and deport them to other countries, including El Salvador." / Rolling Stone

In an agreement among major shipping nations—the US was notably absent—ships that emit greenhouse gases over certain thresholds will incur additional fees. / AP

"We need a right to remember." By deleting entire government databases, the Trump administration is intent on imposing control through data loss. / The New York Times [+]

A look at the US Naval Academy library's book purge: "The Bell Curve, which argues [Black people]...are genetically less intelligent than white people, is still there. But a critique of the book was pulled." / The New York Times [+]

See also: Among the studies purged from the National Institute of Justice's website is one that found undocumented immigrants commit crimes at far lower rates than US citizens. / Bluesky

Yes, DOGE is chaotic and dangerous, but it's also been wildly ineffective in its stated aim of saving money—and in some cases has increased the costs of governing. / Intelligencer

With its company town in coastal Texas now all but imminent, SpaceX also wants the county to cede its authority in deciding when to close a nearby public beach for launches. / KUT News

"A manifestation of power and wealth meant to communicate that power and wealth to others as explicitly as possible." When a McMansion looks like the White House. / McMansion Hell

Compared to a year ago, travel to the US is down from nearly all regional markets—the UK has dropped by 15% and Germany by 29%. / Forbes

The menswear guy breaks down how tariffs infiltrate the pricing formula for a pair of Nikes that's made overseas, shipped to the US, sold to Foot Locker, and then purchased by you. / Bluesky

A new book explores the important role teeth have played throughout history, from facilitating animal diversity to aiding post-mortem analysis. / London Review of Books

Job- and date-seekers are leaving notes inside Waymos. / The Washington Post [+]

See also: Photos of notes left on Los Angeles windshields. / The Morning News

"Picture it: A grown man lying on the carpeted floor of a living room, legs up on the couch, listening to music on headphones in the dark for an hour." I learned to listen from my dad. / Hearing Things

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]]> 2025-04-14T14:45:00+00:00 Friday headlines: Rolling blunder /p/friday-headlines-rolling-blunder#id33371 "The Trump administration believes it has what game theorists call escalation dominance over China... [but] it is China that has escalation dominance in this trade war." / Foreign Affairs

The EU and China are in talks to set minimum prices on Chinese-made EVs, six months after Brussels raised tariffs on the vehicles to as much as 45.3%. / Reuters

See also: A new US Senate bill aims to prevent Chinese vehicles from entering the US market. / The Detroit News

Even with the revised tariffs, the average US household will lose $4,700 in 2024 dollars. / The Budget Lab

According to the US Economic Uncertainty Index, concerns about financial futures right now far surpass what was reported at the onset of the pandemic. / Bluesky

Related: Estimate how much the tariffs will affect your grocery list. / The Cost Index

Jamelle Bouie: Trump's insistence on making every interaction a zero-sum game means he won't be satisfied until everyone bends to his will—US citizens included. / The New York Times [+]

After Nvidia's CEO spent $1 million for a dinner at Mar-a-Lago last week, Trump loosened restrictions on the company's China exports, threatening America's hopes for AI dominance. / Platformer

See also: Trump's deportations are hampering the nation's bird flu strategy; farmworkers are terrorized and fearful of talking with health outreach workers. / KFF Health News

The White House moves to classify thousands of living immigrants as dead to cancel their Social Security numbers and pressure them to "self-deport." / AP

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways: First, there is your executive order saying that it's illegal not to." Poetry revised for 2025. / McSweeney's

A visual guide to the Christian nationalist flags representatives display outside their offices in the US Capitol. / Baptist News Global

The National Park Service updates to the Underground Railroad website that removed Harriet Tubman and downplayed Black abolitionists has been restored to its original text. / Hyperallergic

"Each frame of integral film is a small, square machine with an even smaller chemistry set inside of it, working at a pace of any time but now." On Polaroids and time. / The Georgia Review

From March, a list of the world's best eating cities says the top three are New Orleans, Bangkok, and Medellín. / TimeOut

Push notifications, a simulation. / xkcd

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]]> 2025-04-11T15:29:00+00:00 Thursday headlines: Jam to the slaughter /p/thursday-headlines-jam-to-the-slaughter#id33370 Analysts say President Trump's pause on some tariff measures "upends any pretence that we understand his strategy." / ING

Meanwhile, Trump now faces accusations of market manipulation. / Al Jazeera

The Financial Times: "We now know the market has Trump on a leash, and we have an initial estimate of its length." / The Financial Times

A full list of the new updated tariff rate country by country. / The Guardian

See also: Research strongly suggests America's 19th-century tariffs were probably harmful. / Economic Forces

Switzerland launches a trial program offering young criminals psychotherapy and increased freedoms while keeping them in a confined environment. / NZZ

In the US, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants a system of trucks to handle mass deportation similar to how Amazon's fleet delivers packages. / The Guardian

Why aren't universities using their billion-dollar endowments to fight Trump? "It's easy to see the next four years as a blip when you're about to celebrate your 400th birthday." / Vox

Unrelated: A collection of "improprieties in pronunciation" among people from New England in 1808. / Futility Closet

A biologist says insects from the '70s and '80s were already collecting microplastic, decades before the term even existed. / Bluesky

Remembering heiress Katharine McCormick, who funded development of the pill and Planned Parenthood. / The New York Times [+]

Reviews of Meghan Markle's sold-out raspberry jam: "It's too runny for a PB&J or, God forbid, an open-faced slice of toast." / The Cut

Hunter Biden says sales of his paintings have plummeted since his father left office. / The Art Newspaper

Some notes on Pablo Picasso's drawing notebooks. / Noted

Some photorealistic oil paintings of urban landscapes. / Colossal

Modern culture and emergent tech are said to be reshaping our relationship to dreaming. / Noema

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]]> 2025-04-10T13:49:00+00:00 Wednesday headlines: Once upon a slime /p/wednesday-headlines-once-upon-a-slime#id33369 The world used clean power to meet more than 40% of its electricity demand last year. / The Guardian

Between 1999 and 2023, heat deaths in the United States more than doubled. / Grist

Lithium-ion batteries became the leading cause of fire deaths in New York City last year—how LA removed 1 million pounds of them from its burn zones. / The Los Angeles Times

China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—a new axis called CRINK—unite to defy Western sanctions. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

The tariff war between China and Donald Trump's White House now looks like a big game of chicken. / The New York Times [+]

Economists find only 15.1 percent of the decline in goods-sector employment from 1992 to 2012 stemmed from US trade deficits. / Marginal Revolution

Unrelated: "Slime supersedes economic and social status." A visit to a shrine to slime. / i-D

Physicists propose a new model of space-time that may provide "the first observational evidence supporting string theory." / LiveScience

OpenAI makes ChatGPT Plus free for college students through May. / Adweek

Lessons learned from tracking AI use in global elections in 2024: "It became another tool to generate content on the cheap." / rest of world

Lessons learned from teaching an AI model to become a therapist: "We got a lot of 'hmm-hmms,' 'go ons,' and then 'Your problems stem from your relationship with your mother.'" / MIT Technology Review

See also: Psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster on mass anxiety and "nasal menstruation." / Interview Magazine

Tesla's Cybertruck is said to be the auto industry's biggest flop in decades. / Kottke

Cybertrucks are thought to be such failures that Tesla won't take them as trade-ins, forcing owners seeking compensation to enter the Lemon Law process. / NJ.com

Some illustrated thoughts on maximalist interior design, or "the art of too much." / Misfits' Architecture

The 2025 US Barista Champion explains his recipe for "super milk," a blend of full-cream dairy, cashew, and pistachio milk. / Sprudge

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]]> 2025-04-09T12:45:00+00:00 Tuesday headlines: Cheerleader regression /p/tuesday-headlines-cheerleader-regression#id33368 President Trump plans an expensive military parade for his 79th birthday. / Washington City Paper

Economic tensions with the United States' trading partners begin to escalate. / Semafor

Tariffs may not make other countries respect the US, "but they can make them move on without it." / The Atlantic

A 5-4 Supreme Court lifts an order that blocked the deportation of suspected Venezuelan gang members to a prison in El Salvador. / Reuters

Meanwhile, three-quarters of those deported had no apparent criminal record. / CBS News

Tips for people visiting the United States to minimize the risk of Border Protection accessing their data. / WIRED

A round-up of high-speed rail projects in the US that have a chance. / The New York Times [+]

A billionaire in Southern California owns about 75% of the apartment units in his Orange County city. / Bloomberg [+]

Unrelated: A skateboarding trip through the Golden State. / YouTube

For nearly a year, the FBI secretly ran a money laundering scheme named after Elon Musk. / 404 Media

To justify its power, Silicon Valley obsesses over IQ, "the term of choice for the man who doesn't just think he's smart, but thinks he's smarter than everyone else." / The New York Times [+]

Children of the wealthy spend upwards of $6,000 a month to live in luxury housing near Ivy League schools. / Airmail

See also: "Inside Boston's Luxury Brothel Scandal." / The Wall Street Journal [+]

A long essay on what it's like to live next to malevolent neighbors. / Electric Lit

Thomas R. Wells: There's no good reason for small countries to exist if their primary business is enabling tax avoidance. / 3 Quarks Daily

Some analysis of male characters who appear in Michael Mann movies, for whom nothing is fun and everything is work. / The Los Angeles Review of Books

Some paintings by Emma Beatrez, "the most intriguing of which examine prototypical cheerleaders and the spectacle of small town pep-rally bonfires." / Booooooom

Jesse Pearson interviews his mother about her collection of 8-track cassettes. / Apology Magazine

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]]> 2025-04-08T14:13:00+00:00 Monday headlines: Fossil duel /p/monday-headlines-fossil-duel#id33367 Trump often blames popular resistance to his policies as bad polling, but the size and scope of the Hands Off protests were far too large to be the product of faulty data. / Strength in Numbers

The Israeli military walks back its account of killing 15 Palestinian medics after video contradicts its claims that the victims' emergency signals were not on. / AP

Related: If you are in the US military, you are about to be asked to betray your own values. / How Things Work

According to a researcher, authoritarian regimes tend to break down when elites turn on each other when faced with an economic crisis. / Bluesky

Unrelated: Billionaire hedge fund manager—and Trump booster—Bill Ackman calls Trump's tariffs "a self-induced, economic nuclear winter." / BBC

Now that a second death has been recorded in the Texas measles outbreak, it increases the likelihood that we're going to see more. / STAT

Related: "The generation of physicians who are currently, for the most part, treating patients haven't actually seen what a measles case looks like other than from a textbook or a video." / The New York Times [+]

Trump is offloading the cost of disaster response to cities and states, which could drive them to invest more proactively in climate adaptation and other risk mitigation. / Energy & Environment News

ICE Air flight attendants say in case of a water landing they're instructed to ignore passengers and "make sure that you and the guards and the people that work for the government get off." / ProPublica

The National Park Service's Underground Railroad webpage is being literally whitewashed—sometimes not by direct order, but by low-level NPS workers seeking to comply with what they believed Trump wanted." / The Washington Post [+]

"Are we at the point where universities across the country must have presidents who are agreeable to President Trump or else risk calamitous cuts to their federal funding?" / David Pozen

US cuts leave Democratic Republic of the Congo—a country of more than 100 million—down more than 70% of humanitarian aid, cutting off potable water and HIV drugs overnight amid simmering conflict. / Think Global Health

See also: "You don't improve global security by allowing the World Food Programme to run out of funds to feed 2 million desperate people in the Sahel." / Financial Times

International standards organizations are said to be a current of anticapitalism in the corporate stream. / MIT Press Reader

Splitting more than atoms: Physicists form factions for and against a new, bigger, budget-hungry Large Hadron Collider. / Guardian

Economists consider switching from "gross domestic product" to "net domestic product." One big difference: Counting depreciation of natural resources makes petrostates appear less wealthy. / IMF, Climate Home

As states like Texas enact fossil-reliant energy strategies, a stark reality: New gas turbines are wildly expensive and difficult to procure right now. / Canary Media, Gas Outlook

Winter ice long visited by a dragon spirit no longer freezes; Shinto devotees blame climate change and disharmony with nature. / The New York Times [+]

See also: According to the company behind the initiative, de-extincting mammoths is a win against climate change—but it's almost sure to fail, and the money burned getting there would be better spent on actually fighting climate change. / Ars Technica

A forbidden workplace romance ends with a Major League Baseball player marrying the mascot—or, rather, the woman in the costume. / People

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]]> 2025-04-07T14:47:00+00:00 Monday headlines: Eat, pray, shove /p/monday-headlines-eat-pray-shove#id33366 About 70 percent of adults in the United States say they are following news about the White House. / Pew Research

The administration plans to build a "war-fighting headquarters" in Japan to deter China. / NBC News

Donald Trump says he is not joking about running for a third term. / BBC News

We now know what a Millennial American president looks like, and he has a beard. / The Trend Report

Canadians turn "elbows up" into a movement rallying the nation against President Trump. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Corey Robin: Fear works most potently and powerfully when it threatens our highest sense of ourselves. / Corey Robin

Behind the design of a new Swiss passport. / SWISS Magazine

A tour of an "ultra-narrow" Tokyo hotel. / Spoon & Tamago

A round-up of the best things ever made by Microsoft. / The Verge

Tressie McMillan Cottom: AI is a stellar tool for demoralizing workers. / The New York Times [+]

Blocking the internet on your smartphone improves "sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well-being." / PNAS Nexus

Related: Easy steps for lobotomizing your smartphone. / She's a Beast

Former tennis pro Andrea Petkovic says greatness in the game is a question of tension. / Finite Jest

Unrelated: A new college course likenes heterosexual partnerships to eating disorders. / The Cut

This year's Tournament of Books, presented by Field Notes, reaches its closest-ever conclusion! / Field Notes, The Tournament of Books

Due to fatigue from producing this newsletter and the ToB, TMN is going to take the rest of the week off. See you next Monday.

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]]> 2025-03-31T14:14:00+00:00 Friday headlines: Shangri-Bra /p/friday-headlines-shangri-bra#id33365 Canada's Prime Minister says the country's old relationship with the United States, "is over." / BBC News

An alliance providing vaccines to poor communities says a loss of US funding could potentially cause a million-plus deaths. / The Associated Press

Scientists are stunned that a long-discredited researcher will conduct a federal study on whether vaccines cause autism. / STAT

Researchers are being told to remove any references to "mRNA"—one of the most promising areas of medicine—from grant applications. / Semafor

See also: A poll finds 75% of US-based scientists are considering emigrating, likely to Canada or Europe. / nature

Hillary Clinton: It's not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it's the stupidity. / The New York Times [+]

The White House revokes hundreds of visas to crack down on students who support Palestinians. / NPR

There have been more than 170 violent vigilante attacks by "pedophile hunters" since 2023. / The New York Times [+]

Headline of the week? "Kansas babysitter checking for monsters finds man hiding under bed." / The Guardian

Walking through a thought experiment about: what if jobs were purchasable? / No Dumb Ideas

Related: A brief poem about not working too hard. / Futility Closet

A former Meta employee says a new Facebook memoir "puts a face to the horrific events and dangerous decisions." / rest of world

Today's books and films depict agriculture in outmoded fashion, rather than as "an industry that's ruthless and exploitative in ways peculiarly modern." / The Dial

Eighty percent of women are said to be wearing the wrong size sports bra "with wide-ranging consequences." / The Athletic

Amidst all the anime-izing of photos with ChatGPT, Hayao Miyazaki, founder of Studio Ghibli, is "disgusted" by AI. / The Verge, 404 Media

See also: The Tate Museum got rid of a Van Gogh portrait about a century ago because the subject's beard was "too funny." / The Art Newspaper

"You get really high and you answer emails." Pedro Pascal explains why his Starbucks order is six espresso shots over ice. / Sprudge

If the news is getting you down, why not join the conversation at the Tournament of Books, presented by Field Notes, on its penultimate day?! / Tournament of Books, Field Notes

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]]> 2025-03-28T14:01:00+00:00 Thursday headlines: Driver ate acid /p/thursday-headlines-driver-ate-acid#id33364 The European Union tells residents to stockpile enough food to last 72 hours in readiness for war. / Politico

The week's long read: A reasonably condensed version of one person's seven-year saga of escaping Iran for the United States. / Outliving Iran

Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza protest against Hamas. / The Associated Press

A 19-year-old engineer working for DOGE once provided tech support to a cybercrime ring that bragged about trafficking in stolen data. / The Guardian

A round-up of issues dividing GOP lawmakers—including whether to acknowledge their planned tax cuts will cost $4 trillion. / Wake Up to Politics

The contact details for White House security advisers—and even some of their passwords—can be found in leaked customer data caches. / Der Spiegel

Meta, Google, OpenAI, and others ask the White House to block state AI laws and say it's legal for them to use copyrighted material to train their models. / The New York Times [+]

See also: A federal judge rules that a newspaper copyright lawsuit against OpenAI can proceed. / The Associated Press

A researcher says one reason people are making fewer babies is the "hyper-engaging" media found on phones. / Vox

Four college students explain how they make "positive masculinity" videos for TikTok that are appealing to young men. / Rolling Stone

Two-thirds of single people in the US hold on to clothes that belonged to an ex. / Women's Wear Daily

See also: How to become a contemporary fashion critic. / Ssense

An in-depth interview with actor Michael Shannon about his R.E.M. cover band. / Bitter Southerner

George Saunders: "The first and only time I ever did acid, I looked down at my hands and noticed that they were not, in fact, 'flesh-colored' after all." / The Paris Review

A first look at Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne's archive at the New York Public Library. / Vulture

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]]> 2025-03-27T13:16:00+00:00 Wednesday headlines: Lamb to the water /p/wednesday-headlines-lamb-to-the-water#id33363 Russia agrees to a ceasefire in the Black Sea following talks in Saudi Arabia, then almost immediately demands new terms. / Semafor

Unrelated: President Donald Trump is gifted a new portrait from Vladimir Putin. / BBC News

Consumer confidence in the United States falls to a four-year low. / Al Jazeer

The US put tariffs on goods from Canada in the late 1800s, thinking the country might join the Union—instead, nationalist sentiment surged. / TIME

Security officials say "heads are exploding" after a journalist was added to an administration group chat on Signal. / NPR

The White House insists nothing clasified was shared—so the Atlantic decides to publish the entire chat. / The Atlantic

There are few things more dangerous than firing a spy—and a researcher says Chinese intelligence networks are already recruiting ex-USG officials. / The Associated Press, Reuters

Unrelated: Everything you need to know about Elon Musk's new restaurant in Los Angeles. / Eater

Business jets operating at Mach 5 are becoming closer to "a workable reality." / Robb Report

Malcolm Harris reviews a new book by Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein, who can "brook no structural conflict between social classes" and believe abundance requires no tradeoffs. / The Baffler

The average non-elderly American household only has 46 days of cash savings. / People's Policy Project

A paralysed man can stand on his own after receiving an injection of stem cells to treat a spinal cord injury. / Nature

From last year, a round-up of the 10 hardest dayhikes in the US. / Backpacker

The winners of this year's British Wildlife Photography Awards are said to "celebrate the diversity of animal life across Great Britain." / Colossal

Photographs capture Mexico City's water crisis. / Long Lead

A trendy new way to microdose alcohol? A shot-and-fake-beer setup. / Punch

Gay men recall the kindly waitresses at Hooters who made their restaurants "a secret sanctuary." / The New York Times [+]

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]]> 2025-03-26T14:14:00+00:00 Tuesday headlines: Set the skylight reeling /p/tuesday-headlines-set-the-skylight-reeling#id33362 A Palestinian director of this year's Oscar-winningn documentary is arrested by the Israeli army after masked settlers attack his house. / The Guardian

In the fallout of a journalist being added to a Signal group discussing White House war plans: a lot of loathing for Europe is made public. / The Atlantic [+], Politico

Republicans coalesce around a defiant message despite the news. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Signal is typically not allowed on government phones, which means officials were likely using their personal devices—which are much easier to hack. / Today in Politics

Is President Trump a natavist or a neocon? He's basically being both at the same time. / Forever Wars

Unrelated: Heartwarming thoughts from an indie bookseller in the South. / Kottke

In China, income taxes collected from individuals were 7.5 percent below expectations last year. / Marginal Revolution

The DNA of 15 million people is up for sale after the bankruptcy of 23andMe. / 404 Media

A science journalist says the US needs a "reckoning" over its handling of Covid. / Vox

See also: A round-up of interesting things learned by researchers during Covid that don't have much to do with Covid. / The New York Times [+]

A brief history of "accelerationism"—i.e., the theory that human history is a small mechanism within techno-capital's history. / The Latecomer

Colorado begins overseeing legal use of psychedelic mushrooms in mental health treatment. / Undark Magazine

Architects explain how they restored the skylight in Houston's Rothko Chapel. / Architect

The amount of hair-loss content on TikTok is said to cause many to "think about their scalps too much." / The Cut

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