Fire sale
It's no longer enough to measure income gaps to depict inequality; now, wealth gaps paint a far bleaker picture of American prosperity. / The Conversation
See also: The wildfires exposed a truth about how power operates in Los Angeles: "No city is more in need of its next incarnation." / Bloomberg
Labor unions are at their most treacherous moment in a century, a "result of both the forces arrayed against unions, and the weakness of unions themselves." / How Things Work
"The fallout from Chaplin's anti-fascist speech in 1940 is a sharp reminder that the other side has always been active here." Thinking under fascism. / Dada Drummer Almanach
Among the many topics DeepSeek refuses to address is Ai Weiwei, who calls his omission "quite telling" and says the West is compromising its values in similar ways. / Hyperallergic
CES this year was—unsurprisingly— all about AI, whose "exponents are no longer asking whether anyone wants what they're selling and simply asserting its inevitability." / Defector
Unrelated: Scientists discover a patch of dinosaur vomit. / The Guardian
There's no evidence internet brain rot is real—at least as far as technology can cause "permanent brain damage"—but that doesn't mean you aren't experiencing negative effects. / Dazed
Fake product reviews may be pervasive, but when you consider that any review on a retail site is part of a marketing strategy, all reviews are fake. / Internal Exile
See also: When you discover it's legal for your 911 call to be tracked and for your information to be provided as a sales lead to ambulance chasers. / A Whole Lotta Nothing
How the New York War Crimes—a print resource chronicling misrepresentations in the New York Times' Gaza coverage—is made. / Lux
"The level of manic energy—not to mention labor—it takes to come up with these drinks over and over is not sustainable." A history of why your cocktail is so damn weird. / Punch
A cozy game about cozy games—also, the new comfort movie canon. / Reuters, Cultured
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Your headlines are sourced and composed by Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack (☜), Monday through Friday. View this edition and the latest headlines at TMN.