The Morning News

Leaves embroidered with patterns, by Hillary Waters Fayle.

↩︎ Colossal 2d

Biden is currently polling around 10 points higher than Trump ever did.

↩︎ The New York Times 2d

Perhaps by accident, outlines on Zillow maps show where homes existed before they were demolished to build highways.

↩︎ BuzzFeed News 2d

At least for now, NFTs may only be toys for the wealthy—but for musicians, they may one day offer a new means of clout.

↩︎ Pitchfork 2d

A lack of presidential landslides, stagnating state party lines, and other stats that underscore America's political gridlock.

↩︎ FiveThirtyEight 2d

New documents show the Biden administration may soon be facing a child migrant crisis at the US-Mexico border.

↩︎ Axios 2d

I never interrogated the apocryphal notion that my two families would repel each other like magnets or else collide and decimate me. I just couldn't face the questions, the mixing. The muddiness. But this is what love is.

Mary H.K. Choi on family and marriage—and how they aren’t the same thing.

↩︎ GQ

2d

On navigating vaccine FOMO, which unlike typical FOMO has less to do with jealousy and is more about anxiety.

↩︎ VICE 2d

Americans drove 13% less in 2020, yet vehicle deaths jumped by 8%—states report more speeding, distraction, and impairment.

↩︎ ABC News 2d

Often regarded as too slick and overproduced, the Clash's 1985 album Cut the Crap has been "rebooted" by Gerald Manns, who injected new life into the songs by mixing in portions of bootleg performances—and in some cases playing the instruments himself:

To get a better sound I had to buy a Les Paul to differ from my Telecaster sound (nice axe to have anyway). I had to add some backing vocals because the algorithms swallowed some of the football chants (didn't make them out as vocals). It took me a while to mix it all, but now it was time to kick it out of my house.

2d

"Legal doesn't necessarily mean safe." Gaps in testing and law leave western PA family living near fracking shot with carcinogens.

↩︎ Environmental Health News 2d

I feel so jaded having watched so much complete systemic failure in the face of so much tragedy, tragedy we’ve barely begun to process. All I feel like I’ve learned over the past year is that we have to help each other.

For many people, 2020 was a lost year, but not always in ways to be expected.

↩︎ Maya Kosoff

3d

“My vegetables always grew larger than most.” A report from the gentle British world of growing enormous vegetables for sport.

↩︎ Atlas Obscura 3d

Last week, chess surpassed League of Legends, Fortnite and Valorant as the most-watched gaming category on Twitch.

↩︎ Protocol 3d

There is balloon art, and then there is balloon art by Masayoshi Matsumoto.

↩︎ It's Nice That 3d

Philip Bump: If retiring hurtful anachronisms is "cancel culture," what, exactly, is the culture you're trying to protect?

↩︎ The Washington Post 3d

The merch table is restocked just in time for next week's Tournament of Books. Sustaining Members get 50% off!

↩︎ The TMN Store 3d

Researchers digitally unfold 17th-century letters that had been “letterlocked” to prevent them from being read during transit.

↩︎ Kottke 3d

“It’s sort of like getting into a cold pool. You go in and you get a little deeper, and you get a little deeper, and finally you’re in the pool and it feels normal.”

Helen Branswell games out three phases in the future of the coronavirus over the next couple years.

↩︎ STAT

3d

Among the 100 most overpaid CEOs, Alphabet's Sundar Pichai makes more than 1,000 times what his median employee takes home.

↩︎ As You Sow 3d