In describing Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” the special counsel’s report opened a new front in the election. / Vox

See also: “[The special counsel], a lifelong Republican and creature of DC, didn’t have a case against Biden, but he knew exactly how his swipes could hurt Biden politically.” / Politico

Inside the Maryland clinic that has become a destination for desperate patients in need of late-term abortions. / The New Yorker

Months after mistakenly paying at least nine teachers tens of thousands in bonuses, Oklahoma’s Dept. of Education is demanding they return the money. / NPR

New York therapists say that since the pandemic, they’ve been treating more and more children for subway anxiety. / Curbed

The demand for e-bikes means cheaper models—some of which can have dangerous batteries—are flooding the market, and raising fire concerns. / BBC

Um: “Chinese hackers infiltrated plane, train and water systems for five years, US says.” / The Guardian

To try and read the Herculaneum papyri, scrolls that were frozen in time when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, a contest among technologists and whatever methods they dream up. / Bloomberg

See also: Here’s the first round of winners. / Vesuvius Challenge 2023

“You can wear them everywhere, even at a party.” The $1.50 sandals that are the preferred footwear for street soccer in Ivory Coast. / The New York Times [+]

What led to Buddy Holly’s death: a poorly planned tour in a single bus criss-crossing a frozen Midwest made the allure of a chartered plane too much to resist. / Can’t Get Much Higher

On dancing CEOs: “It was still fun to watch your boss dance.” No, no it was not. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

View Post ?

For the first time on record, global warming has exceeded temperatures of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit over a 12-month period. / Al Jazeera

An unlikely coalition behind the White House’s natural gas pivot: climate activists and manufacturing facilities. / Grist

The proportion of buildings destroyed in Gaza is said to now approach “that of Guernica, Hamburg, or Hiroshima.” / The London Review of Books

In multiple replays of a wargame simulation, OpenAI’s chatbot elects to launch nuclear attacks. / NewScientist

Unrelated/related: Can AI art be copyrighted? Recent guidelines from the Copyright Office “reaffirm that purely generated images are in the public domain.” / Newart

Uber posts its first full-year profit since going public in 2019. / The Hill

Credit card balances increased by $50 billion to $1.13 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2023. / Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Unpacking four ways the Supreme Court may rule regarding former President Trump’s name on the Colorado ballot. / Vox

A publisher retracts two studies that a Texas judge cited last year while suspending approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. / Reuters

FYI: That smart toothbrush botnet story you may have seen is not real. / 404 Media

Danielle Cohen unpacks the many reasons, as a person who knows nothing about football, why she plans to watch the Super Bowl. / The Cut

The San Francisco 49ers bring a tactical twist to the big event: bunching together their offensive line. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Unrelated: “There’s no butting out on Nextdoor, only butting in.” / The Washington Post [+]

View Post ?

Three scenarios imagine how the Supreme Court may handle Donald Trump’s imminent appeal to avoid an election-subversion trial. / Politico

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi never lost a vote in eight years as leader. Speaker Mike Johnson just lost two in one night. / Wake Up to Politics

Fox Corp., Warner Bros. Discovery, and Disney are creating a single joint venture for streaming sports. / Variety

Around 1,000 private planes are expected in Las Vegas for the Super Bowl—double the amount of parking spots. / Pro Football Network

See also: “Taylor Swift joins Elon Musk in trying to silence student who tracks celebrity jets.” / The Verge

This week’s long (long) read: Investigating the mysterious death of a London teenager who pretended to be an oligarch’s offspring. / The New Yorker

A Hinge report claims Gen Z daters are 47% more likely than millennials to say the pandemic made them nervous talking to people. / FastCompany

The average age of people using TikTok in the United States is 30-plus. / The Economist

Hackers used deepfake technology on a video call to persuade a finance officer to pay out $25 million. / CNN

Meghan Boilard says cocomelon is probably not an existential threat to children and parents—or, if so, it’s too late anyway. / Off-Topic

Nicholson Baker says space aliens are not an existential threat to the US and everyone needs to calm down. / Intelligencer

Related: Remembering the 1990s San Francisco beach rave that collectively hallucinated a UFO. / SF Gate

View Post ?

A profile of Esmail Qaani, head of Iran’s covert paramilitary operations, whose lack of charisma is said to make managing different groups difficult. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Why is there growing interest in economic degrowth? Young people want radical change, claims Kohei Saito. / Grist

Interpol calls on police departments to address crimes committed in virtual reality, including sexual assault. / The Washington Post [+]

Hurricanes are becoming stronger due to the climate crisis, and scientists want a new category to classify them. / The Guardian

The Supreme Court is set to decide whether Covid misinformation is protected speech. / STAT

A fashion trend for 2024: “quiet outdoor,” or, wearing subdued mountaineering clothing in the city. / Highsnobiety

Going “boysober” is purported to be “this year’s hottest mental health craze.” / The New York Times [+]

Your weekly white paper: Seizures of psilocybin mushrooms increased 273 percent between 2017-2022. / National Institute on Drug Abuse

Nonalcoholic Athletic Brewing passes Heineken and Budweiser as the top beer sold in US grocery stores. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Manhattan’s Frick Collection is set to reopen with 14 separate bars, but no happy hours. / Eater

Director Greta Gerwig explains why 10am and 4pm are the best times to watch a movie. / X

Even when you’re relaxing on the couch, your brain “is hard at work making it happen.” / Quanta Magazine

View Post ?

After Jan. 6, big business rebuffed Trump—now some CEOs are signaling they wouldn’t mind the former president’s return to the White House. / The New Republic

See also: Celebrated two years ago for saying it would not finance new coal projects, Bank of America is now reneging on those commitments. / The New York Times [+]

Generally speaking, human life expectancy is increasing around the world, and is expected to continue rising in decades to come. / Ars Technica

More disposable income and increased access to online marketplaces are fueling India’s booming art market. / Artsy

“The tech platforms figured out how to insert themselves between the news producers and the news audience.” Public funding of journalism is the only way. / How Things Work

Once a haven of expertise, Quora is now virtually unusable thanks to AI spam—and the site’s high search ranking is spreading that garbage far and wide. / Slate

See also: “Whereas humans are limited in the kinds of explanations we can rationally conjecture, machine learning systems can learn both that the earth is flat and that the earth is round.” / The New York Times [+]

X-ray technology has evolved to the point where patients no longer need to wear lead aprons during imaging. / STAT

So far, one of the most compelling real-world uses for Apple Vision Pro is one of the more mundane: kitchen timers. / WIRED

See also: Reading a comic book with Apple Vision Pro is “like you’re within the book instead of just looking at a page or two.” / Digital Composting

And also: For one user, Apple Vision Pro provides a temporary antidote to ADHD. / Dan Salvato

Aston “Family Man” Barrett, the former bassist and bandleader of Bob Marley and the Wailers, has died at 77. / Consequence

The largest ever recorded snowflake was spotted in Montana in 1887, and measured “up to 1 ft 3 in (38 cm) wide and 8 in (20 cm) thick.” / My Modern Met

View Post ?

In retaliation for Iran’s attack that killed US troops, the US launches airstrikes against targets in Iraq and Syria linked to Iran-backed groups. / Reuters

See also: Why the war in Gaza makes a nuclear Iran more likely. / Foreign Affairs

Following a history teacher’s viral video, Target removes a book from its Black History Month collection that misidentifies civil rights icons. / NPR

Independent music labels say Apple Music’s bonuses for artists who provide spatial audio tracks will pay less to those who can’t afford to record spatial audio. / The Verge

Wayne Kramer of the legendary MC5 has died at 75. / Rolling Stone

Apprenticeships in the US are growing more popular, increasing by 82.1% between 2008 and 2021. / USAFacts

Apparently an idea that’s been floating around awhile: How a giant umbrella in space could block enough solar radiation to counter global warming. / The New York Times [+]

Using a technique known as distributed acoustic sensing, fiber optic cables can be used to detect various phenomena, and are now being used to monitor the health of railways. / WIRED

A 17-year-old has been arrested in Provo, Utah, for taping fish to ATMs and other objects. / USA Today

Eight months after it was apprehended, a pigeon suspected of being a Chinese spy has been released. / Gizmodo

Backed by tech libertarians, a new sports organization that celebrates steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs calls itself “the most inclusive sports league in history.” / VICE

Hand-colorizing the oldest surviving map of London—the Copperplate map of the late 1550s—makes you appreciate entirely new Tudor-era details. / Londonist: Time Machine

Finding the wonders within a hike to a 20-square-kilometer area that appears—on a map, anyway—to be the most uninteresting place imaginable. / Noema

View Post ?

Campaign finance reports show that last year, Trump donors spent more than $50 million on the former president’s legal fees. / Axios

See also: In the last quarter of 2023, Trump raised $19 million to Biden’s $33 million. / Reuters

The Texas Supreme Court halted depositions in the whistleblower case against the state attorney general, remarkably, after Trump asked them to. / The Texas Tribune

“Montgomery itself is like a choose-your-own-adventure of the most horrifically f— up racist s— you can imagine.” The Montgomery Riverboat Brawl was 2023 in a single viral video. / Andscape

A brief history of American fascism, as seen through the lens of Black America. / Boston Review

Naming cancers based on their characteristics, rather than organs, allows science to think more in terms of treatments that address the ways tumors alter. / STAT

Signs the commercial real estate market, still reeling from the pandemic, is about to get much, much worse. / Bloomberg [+]

A new mask lets wearers talk on their phones while remaining silent to everyone around them. / Hyperallergic

“More choice is better for people than less choice.” Smartphones changed everything, and more reasons you don’t really miss Blockbuster. / Can’t Get Much Higher

The University of Iowa’s independent student newspaper purchases two weekly local newspapers. / NiemanLab

“He was not paid, but did make some money from selling the CDs to a record store after he was done with them.” How a notorious Pitchfork reviewer shaped one writer’s taste. / Defector

In Woodstock, Ill., where Groundhog Day was filmed, hundreds of fans gather every year, year after year, to celebrate their favorite movie. / The Morning News

View Post ?

The European Union reaches a deal on $54bn of support for Ukraine after months of obstruction by Hungary. / Deutsche Welle

Some 1,300 farmers blockaded central Brussels with trucks and tractors to protest new biodiversity legislation—and combined with other protests, it worked. / Bloomberg, The Guardian

Related/unrelated: Why are some rich societies conservative? / The Great Gender Divergence

A WWII treasure map sends hundreds of fortune seekers to the Dutch village of Ommeren. / Atlas Obscura

Photographs of Berlin’s disappearing gambling dens. / Booooooom

Mexico City residents protest weeks of water shortages. / Reuters

Scientists and emergency officials are tired of fighting misinformation—and no, California is not being hit by the “ARkStorm” this week (though the photos are impressive). / The New York Times [+], The Los Angeles Times

Researchers find there is a correct way to take your pills: reclining, while leaning to your right. / Valet Mag

The gene-editing therapy CRISPR is shown to potentially cure people with hereditary angioedema, a debilitating disorder. / NewScientist

Fans of Wordle and other online games report feeling emotionally damaged if they lose a playing streak. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

A profitable trend for influencers? Being “bland” in the manner of Hailey Bieber. (Though at the same time: “Everyone’s a sellout now.”) / Vox

According to ESPN, LeBron James has played against 35% of all players in NBA history. / X

View Post ?

Israel’s Netanyahu vows to continue the Gaza attack despite widespread pressure to reach a ceasefire. Perhaps he fears losing power? / Al Jazeera, Haaretz

Israel’s influential far right ministers want to resettle Gaza and exclude Palestinians. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

A pediatrician visiting Gaza calls it “a sea of human tragedy.” / The New Yorker

Project 2025 lays out its plans to restrict or ban abortion via executive action if Trump wins reelection. / Politico

Related: The Biden campaign is finally talking about abortion. / The Cut

Organized crime is mining sand from rivers and coasts to feed worldwide demand. / Scientific American

An investigation finds hundreds of food brands—from Frosted Flakes to Gold Medal flour—tied to unpaid (or barely paid) prison labor. / The Associated Press

Every 11 or so years, the sun’s magnetic poles reverse—and we’re just about due for a flip. / Vox

Latif Nasser: Contrary to any posters about space, we don’t live in a big clockwork, we live in a dance club. / X

From a long, in-depth review of Apple’s new Vision Pro: “I’ve come to agree with what Tim Cook has been saying for so long: headsets are inherently isolating.” / The Verge

“Life needs to be shared.” Interviews with people who hosted their own “living funerals.” / The Guardian

Some notes from a conference of ghost writers. “Former editors, former journalists, former mid-list writers—they’d probably be working at Starbucks.” / The New York Times [+]

Making the argument against taking mirror selfies inside bathrooms if toilets are visible. / Blackbird Spyplane

View Post ?

Our understanding of the devastation in Gaza is fast dimming as Palestinian journalists leave, quit, or die. / The New York Times [+]

Nazia Kazi: With increasing fervour, Muslim America is united in demanding a shift in Middle East policy. / Al Jazeera

Documents show the Kremlin studying ways to undermine the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency. / The Washington Post [+]

Some photographs of Soviet country cottages. Pictures of Canadian ice huts. A photograph of Albert Einstein’s sink. / The Guardian, Colossal, Futility Closet

See also: The price of cocoa, up by 82% in 12 months, is at a 46-year high. / The Economist

A few thoughts on what the Mayorkas impeachment push says about Congress’ legislative incapacity: “Surely, crafting new, clarifying laws is an option as well.” / Wake Up to Politics

Conspiracy theorists believe Taylor Swift and the NFL are Pentagon-sponsored operations intended to reelect President Biden. / Reliable Sources

Related: Donald Trump, perhaps more than any other public figure in recent history, “is a walking, talking monument to extrinsic values.” / The Guardian

Unrelated/related: A guide to digital security when it comes to keeping information about your abortion safe. / digital defense fund

Walmart employs some 14,000 truck drivers, who supposedly make up to $110,000 in their first year. / Freight Waves

Parents are hiring coaches—for $250/hour—to help them adjust to reality after their children leave home. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Scientists have basically no idea where great white sharks go to bear their young. / Science

A profile of possibly the world’s only collector of lost-pet posters. / The Waiting Room

View Post ?