The Morning News

Recommended viewing: *Distant Sky*, the concert film from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, available to stream until April 22.

↩︎ Nick Cave 7h

The Mueller Report has two spaces after every sentence—for what it's worth, that likely means it wasn't typed by a junior staffer.

↩︎ Quartzy 7h

If Mueller delivered a "born digital" PDF to Justice, that file was printed and scanned back into a set of low-quality images for release; a disservice to all future users of the document, and also a violation of Section 508 regulations.

Absolutely incredible: “A Technical and Cultural Assessment of the Mueller Report PDF.”

↩︎ PDF Association

7h

There were echoes this week of the Starr Report, the rollout of which in 1998 was a milestone in internet history.

↩︎ Nieman Journalism Lab 14h

When, sooner or later, illness comes along, I won’t know whether the pollution I’ve taken in over the years has had anything to do with it, or if I should, instead, blame my lifelong preference for a good book over a brisk run, or a malevolent gene buried somewhere in my DNA.

Beth Gardiner on air pollution, a seemingly unavoidable aspect of our lives as humans today.

↩︎ Literary Hub

14h

Biased AI should be abandoned; fixing would mean more data gathering, further threatening those who are already targeted.

↩︎ Vox 14h

Facebook has work to do on its auto-generated video captions, as a clip of an Antares rocket launch showed this week.

↩︎ Ars Technica 15h

E-scooter companies claim a company that's picking up abandoned scooters in San Diego is holding the vehicles for "ransom."

↩︎ Jalopnik 15h

"In that only place..." "Here is a story! Story it is." "Once upon a time..." How speakers of various languages begin fairytales.

↩︎ The Guardian 15h

Using broken or otherwise contorted materials, Carla Cascales Alimbau creates severe, minimalist sculptures.

↩︎ IGNANT 15h

A new dilemma is approaching in copyright law: When AI, trained to sound like a specific artist, turns out soundalike tracks.

↩︎ The Verge 16h

From carbon taxation to nuclear energy, the 18 Democrats seeking the presidency state their positions on climate policy.

↩︎ The New York Times 16h

What topics most effectively mobilize voters in several European countries.

↩︎ European Council on Foreign Relations 1d

The (redacted) Mueller report arrives. Read the whole thing yourself, or with the Washington Post's annotations.

↩︎ The Washington Post 1d

"Long odds, hard breaks, and outright jankiness." Opening day at a dying minor league ballpark.

↩︎ Deadspin 1d

To “never forget” means you don’t solve a problem with state violence or with personal violence. Instead, you change the conditions under which violence prevailed.

Politically, the prison abolition movement is hard to discuss. Morally, it’s clearly right.

↩︎ The New York Times Magazine

1d

More about this

The Editors' Longreads Picks

Why New Yorkers have traditionally worn black. “Black says this: ‘I don’t bother you, you don’t bother me.’”

↩︎ The Cut 1d

In 19th-century America, one in four cowboys in the American West was black.

↩︎ Smithsonian Magazine 1d

Part one of "Geometry of Circles," Philip Glass's series of vocal and instrumental pieces for Sesame Street in 1979. Here's a video of all four segments.

1d

Israeli scientists create what they say is the first 3D-printed heart using a bio-ink gel made out of human tissue.

↩︎ Newsweek 1d