Follow the liter

Trump’s tax bill reduces incomes for the poorest households while enriching the wealthiest—and visualizing this economic redistribution paints a chilling picture. / Strength in Numbers

With the bill, “Republican senators now must grapple with…cutting hundreds of billions of dollars of clean energy subsidies that are flowing to their own states.” / The Washington Post ($)

The original version of the bill prohibited Medicaid funding for gender-affirming care for minors, which Congressional Republicans expanded to include adults as well. / The Intercept

Whether Democrats are truly having some sort of reckoning right now over Joe Biden is anyone’s guess, but “political journalists want that to be the case.” / The New Republic

The White House has deleted a database of Trump’s transcripts, leaving fact-checkers without an official source for holding the administration accountable. / CNN

In a behind-the-scenes capitulation, PBS forced the makers of a documentary on Art Spiegelman to remove a section critical of Trump. / The Atlantic ($)

Bezos, Musk, and Zuckerberg claim to be fans of Iain M. Banks’s sci-fi, which is quite a reach given how the novels clearly depict a socialist utopia. / Vox

On the other hand, why Banks appeals to Musk may have more to do with the rise of technology over politics. / Read Max

What the AI-generated book list really means: When advertising poses as editorial, the words never mattered. / Internal exile

Close reading asks us to look at a book as more than an object to be consumed, and the best part is you can start anytime you like. / Defector

Malaria prevention efforts are hampered as mosquitoes develop a resistance to insecticides. Some researchers are trying a new approach: treating mosquitoes for malaria. / BBC

Happy 150th birthday to the formal adoption of the metric system, which was enshrined in an 1875 treaty signed by, among others, the United States. / ABC

Jennifer Daniel on the sometimes goofy, sometimes respectful saluting emoji, and how Apple’s overserious take makes it ripe for subversion. / Did Someone Say Emoji?

“I used to think I could use old computers to break open time and get everything back; to fold the screen in two and make a tesseract.” On screensavers. / The Paris Review

Among the many discoveries of switching to a flip phone for a month: “I called my mom way more.” / Vox

Tired: Coinbase says a months-long data breach exposed at least 69,461 customers’ personal and financial data. / TechCrunch

Wired: To promote their new music project, Thom Yorke and Mark Pritchard had coins forged and buried around the world for fans to locate. / VICE

What it means to find personal identity through Sublime, “a trio of fuckups from Long Beach who make, as one meme puts it, music for people who have thrown up in the ocean.” / Longreads

Please note, we’ll be off Monday for Memorial Day and will see you again on Tuesday!

In the members area, unlocked links from the Washington Post and the Atlantic ↓