Covid is the only virus that has an adequate availability of tests—other infectious diseases remain dangerously lacking in diagnostics. / Financial Times

In the first year after the end of affirmative action, colleges' diversity numbers are already dwindling, and many are looking at ways to reverse the trend. / Inside Higher Ed 

Anti-abortionists are using states' single-subject requirements for initiatives to keep abortion rights—which address two subjects, the fetus and the mother—off ballots. / Slate

"Like trends in fashion, the dominant style of social media oscillates between aestheticized perfection and aestheticized mess." The desperation of the Instagram photo dump. / The New Yorker

In South Korea, sales of strollers for dogs outpace those for human babies. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

When it comes to grocery chains, Texans' fervor for San Antonio-based H-E-B is so intense that once stores move into a region, national competitors can't keep up. / Sherwood

See also: In Marathon, Texas (pop. 410), a local grocery store helped bring a community together—before disagreements and legal battles tore it apart. / Texas Monthly

In Victorian Britain, temperance advocates published "drink maps" of various cities in attempts to convince authorities there were too many places to buy alcohol. / Atlas Obscura

Americans can now drive to France—via a ferry that connects Newfoundland to Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the last French territory in North America. / Thrillist

A search for the photographer whose everyday images of occupied Paris delighted in trolling Nazis. / Le Monde

"The attempt to hide ambition with a sunset on a mountainside may be the internet's greatest trick." Gonzales regrets how the neoclassical genre he popularized became the algorithm's favorite. / The Quietus

AI chatbots are proving remarkably effective in persuading conspiracy theorists to doubt their beliefs, by tailoring counter-arguments to the individual. / Ars Technica

See also: At least for now, the next generation of Wikipedia editors is keenly aware of the existential threat AI's errors pose for the site. / The Guardian

xAI's supercomputer caught Memphis by surprise, skirting regulations in favor of becoming operational as fast as possible—even the city council was kept in the dark. / NPR

A startup wants to create the first space-based cellular broadband network, and is launching massive, sky-obscuring satellites to do it. / Gizmodo

"Have you ever been drifting off to sleep, only to be jerked awake by the sound of a bomb going off inside your head?" On exploding head syndrome. / The Conversation

Zone out to a mountain biker doing flips on a moving train. / Instagram

Nearly 400,000 people are without power as Tropical Storm Francine makes landfall in Louisiana. / CBS News

Photos of the French Quarter in New Orleans before and during Francine. / The Times-Picayune

Four civilians become the first non-government astronauts to conduct a spacewalk. / CNN

One of the largest US militias has forged alliances with law enforcement around the country. / ProPublica

Unrelated: Charts and data visualizations often convey narratives "that are misleading or entirely false." / Asimov Press

An interview with Leticia Sarda, aka Celebrity Number Six, on learning that thousands of people on the web have spent years searching for her. "I'm not ready for this." / The New York Times [+]

How to make an electronic bumper sticker that displays what you're listening to inside your car. / YouTube

See also: A q+a with the creator of Tuneshine, those LED album art displays. / Pocketlint

How can society make sure it benefits from AI, while minimizing the risks? One idea: make AI companies pay for the harm they cause. / Noema

Researchers find hundreds of different types of bacteria and fungi at altitudes as high as 10,000 feet. / Phys.org

The "World's Longest Yard Sale" runs for six hundred and ninety miles, from Michigan to Alabama. / The New Yorker

The best travel guides today? Exclusive Google Docs with vetted, personal recommendations. / Thrillist

Thanks to the readers who pointed out a typo in yesterday's link about stationery. As one noted, "all stationery shops are stationary, but not all stationary shops sell stationery."

The US says Iran is shipping ballistic missiles to Russia for its war against Ukraine in a "dramatic escalation." / NBC News

A first-hand account of surviving Israel's attack on Gaza's al-Mawasi "humanitarian zone." / Al Jazeera

Kamala Harris won last night's presidential debate in part by putting Donald Trump on the defensive. She also won Taylor Swift's endorsement. / Politico Magazine, Instagram

Harris is also said to have beaten Trump at the business of television, "which is a remarkable achievement." / The Bulwark

David Mack: I knew Harris won the debate because I watched Fox News the moment it ended. / Slate

Unrelated: American men are eating far more red and processed meats than federal guidelines recommend. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Nearly 200 people were killed last year protecting the environment. / Grist

Hannah Ritchie: You and I aren't going to solve climate change, but we are an important part of a system that will get us there. / Sustainability by numbers

"It's hard not to find the absurdity in it." Making fun of 9/11 is now a popular meme for Gen Z. / Rolling Stone

Some 92 percent of 8- to 12-year-olds are on social media. Does that mean their brains are being damaged? "In scientific terms, no." / Vox

A trailer for the Minecraft movie is getting ripped apart by viewers on YouTube—"horrifying," "devastating," and "expensively naff." / The Guardian

"An unfinished project is full of intoxicating potential." Some tips on how to finish a project when deadlines are absent. / ByteDrum

For your Wednesday wanderlust: a bike tour across Japan, a foodie tour across France. / The Radavist, Travel + Leisure

A new fashion label for the ultra-rich requires a $12,000 membership fee before you can buy any of the clothes. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Declassified images from US Army archives show combat designs through the decades. / The Guardian

Drummer Spencer Tweedy, son of Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, reviews stationary shops around Europe. / Spencer Tweedy

An op-ed for the visionary art director and photographer Lloyd Ziff. "I'm only in it for my friends, so I can give them work." / The New York Times [+]

Vice President Harris will meet Donald Trump tonight in their only confirmed debate. / axios

Some iinterviews with people who started politics-free Facebook groups. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

A political reporter says the question he gets asked most often is "who will win the presidential race?" (He says it's always been tied.) / Wake Up to Politics

Brazil is suffering its worst drought since nationwide measurements began over seven decades ago. / The Associatedd Press

See also: Photographs of scientists recording sounds in the Amazon. / The Dial

A fossil-fuel billionaire in Texas is trying to sue Greenpeace USA out of existence. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

​​Cabernet Sauvignon is the most popular red wine in the US, but Napa Valley may no longer be able to make it, given the climate crisis. / NPR

In France, frozen products accounted for 24 percent of all pastries in 2021. It was 17 percent in the United States. / Marginal Revolution

New recipes are said to be moving away from cutesy titles—e.g., "beany leeky greens with greeky rampy beans"—to becoming more straightforward. / Eater

Composer Max Richter describes the different styles of music that have influenced him since he was little. / Pitchfork

An ode to looking at works by the fifteenth-century Flemish painter Jan van Eyck. "They beg to be seen face to face." / The New Criterion 

Apple's new AirPods will function as over-the-counter hearing aids, something users were already tinkering with. / Kottke, Bang Your Head

For tennis fans, Jon Wertheim's 50 parting thoughts from the US Open. / Sports Illustrated

From restoring access to enshrining bans—including two competing measures in Nebraska—a look at the abortion initiatives on US ballots this November. / The New York Times [+]

What's causing grocery price inflation? Retailer data shows it's not just corporate greed, it's also consumer spending habits. / NPR

In the first reported case, a person in Missouri with no known contact with poultry or dairy cows contracted bird flu. / NBC News

You can mask even if it isn't Covid, and more tips in this practical guide to the upcoming viral season. / Vox

"The field of paleontology is mean. It has always been mean." Inside the battle between two paleontologists over a site that could hold evidence of the day the dinosaurs died. / Intelligencer

Pour-over coffee takes time, which has driven demand—including a disastrous attempt by Starbucks—to automate the process. / Works in Progress

How a design firm created the novelty popcorn buckets—e.g., the infamous Dune sandworm—that have spawned a movie-theater phenomenon. / Slate

Hugh Jackman denies using steroids, except why should anyone care? / The Wrap

See also: When tennis stars are also billionaires' offspring, it's frustratingly hard to distinguish talent from privilege. / The Guardian

Veneers are the quick answer to the allure of perfect-looking teeth. But as the procedure becomes more accessible, the potential for trauma increases. / The Cut

In Europe, YouTube will stop recommending fitness videos to teens to help prevent developing "negative beliefs about themselves." / Euronews

See also: According to a new survey, fewer teens are vaping now than at any point in the past 10 years. / AP

"We went where Bob Hope didn't go." A group of American soldiers were also a rock band that toured Vietnam during the war. / Rolling Stone

There is a reference book for every moment in life, and it's time we start appreciating all the knowledge at our disposal. / Discourse

A roundup of the best animated series you should be watching now. / Meditations in an Emergency

"The best Oasis shirts were brutalist, or avant garde, or hideous, or looked like bootlegs." A design review of Oasis. / Snake

After five years of internet sleuthing, a model seen on a piece of fabric—aka Celebrity Number Six—has been found. / Reddit

See also: Redditors identified a new medical diagnosis: an inability to burp. And now doctors have responded with a treatment. / KFF Health News

"You've been selected because you're Andersen quality but not Andersen price." What it was like to work a job in fake Y2K preparedness. / n+1

Data from 10 million car crashes shows larger vehicles kill more Americans—compared to compact cars, colliding with a heavy pickup increases fatality rates by roughly seven-fold. / The Economist

See also: Cars have destroyed American cities, which were designed around cars. / How Things Work

How office workers shifted from sharing their personal lives to instead being "on PTO." / Vanity Fair

Women's world no. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, who's headed to the US Open final tomorrow, is hitting her forehand harder than the top men's players. / The Telegraph

How the US Open became "a monument to conspicuous consumption and aspirational wealth where tennis has become virtually incidental." / The Guardian

On Europe's disappearing peasantry: "They wear suits, to us perhaps a strange garb for such a journey as theirs, but this is a sign of their respect, of gravity realized." / Literary Hub

Test your knowledge of world geography—but instead of maps, make it about the news. / Rest of World

See also: Test your perception of the color blue. / Is my blue your blue?

"In a political landscape where climate issues have become highly divisive, green activists are split as to whether SDLT's disruptive methods can be effective—or whether they will further divide." / The Dial

Why are Yellowstone visitors petting bison? Or cooking in geysers? "There was only one way to find out: by going into the park and behaving like an idiot." / Outside

"After that epic reset, probably some snowy day in late 2027, we will finally begin to reintroduce what was lost." Beyond "rewilding," a landowner is working to restore the prairie. / Orion

How marinades do—and don't—work, and how too much of a good thing can make chicken taste like metallic ammonia. / Serious Eats

A look at how brands name themselves today, and how writers are finding themselves either revered or sidelined in the process. / It's Nice That

The Led Zeppelin songs that were written or inspired by other artists, some credited, some not, and some credited following litigation. / Wikipedia

The EU and UK are investigating Ticketmaster over the "dynamic pricing" model that sent ticket prices skyrocketing for the Oasis reunion. / Pitchfork

Researchers say they've discovered an antibody that can effectively fight against all variants of Covid-19. / KUT News

Some advice from experts on when to get shots to protect against influenza, Covid, and RSV. / STAT

A small study of gender-affirming care finds immune system differences in men and women. / Scientific American

In Syracuse, a vending machine offers students pregnancy tests and affordable Plan B. / STAT

Regarding those parents designing their kids' college dorm rooms: "Decorating is really a way of extending a loving tentacle of control." / The Cut

Unrelated: Some dogs can remember the name of a toy even when they haven't seen it for two years. / The Guardian

Volvo drops its target of producing only electric vehicles by 2030. / Reuters

Tesla Cybertruck behavior explained by David Attenborough (not really). / Threads

New York City created a program that enabled citizens to earn money by reporting polluters—and now appears intent on thwarting the citizens who actually do it. / Curbed

Strava and Letterboxd are said to be taking hold as alternatives to larger platforms for people seeking community. / Bloomberg

Ted Chiang: AI isn't going to write a decent novel anytime soon. / The New Yorker


Do women need to do more than men to receive a Wikipedia page? / Michele Coscia

Two American women are playing in the US Open women's singles semifinals. / NPR

Former pro Andrea Petkovic explains what it's like to date an athlete. "There is a lot of gender confusion when it comes to dating a female tennis player." / Finite Jest 

An actor tells Spaniards to hit a certain supermarket at night and carry a pineapple for dating opportunities. / BBC News

Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro moves Christmas to October, to distract from his seemingly stealing the election. / The Guardian

An Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years in prison for tweeting a period to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. / NPR

Lebanon's former central bank governor, arrested over alleged financial crimes, is said to be "the world's worst banker." / Reuters, The Economist

Margaret Sullivan breaks down "an ugly case" of false balance in the New York Times. / American Crisis

Republicans are upset that Americans aren't talking more about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. / Semafor

See also: An art-world wishlist for the next American president. / The Art Newspaper

A session in the sauna at the Finnish embassy is said to be one of DC's more oveted invitations. / The New York Times [+]

Whatever happened to the Bolivian women who skateboard in Indigenous garb? The 300 young Afghan musicians who fled the Taliban? / Goats and Soda

Cyber attacks rose 30 percent in 2023, with the United States as the top target. / techradar

An anarchist collective teaches people how to make DIY versions of expensive pharmaceuticals. / 404 Media

As "the Jevons paradox" explains, even if autonomous vehicles work perfectly, they are likely to increase total emissions and crash deaths. / The Verge

See also: New research says the costs of expanding roads in American cities are three times greater than the potential benefits. / Bloomberg CityLab

Fashion writer Samuel Hine travels the world with Balenciaga's Denma as the designer learns how to let go. / GQ

An American will play in the men's final at the US Open for the first time since 2006. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Acadia Healthcare, a leading chain of psychiatric hospitals, is holding some patients against their will to maximize insurance payouts. / The New York Times [+]

Only about 6% of American plastic waste is recycled. "You're being lied to." / Semafor

A Texas resident tracks her plastic recycling all the way to an open-air lot. / Tom's Hardware

A barbecue editor assesses the best places outside of Texas to eat Texas bbq. / Texas Monthly

Unrelated: Only 3-5% of the total US population can be considered within the range of having "six-pack abs." / Valet Magazine

A round-up of the United States' best motor lodges or "road hotels." / Wildsam

What it's like to camp in the Mojave Desert when the temperature hits 120. "Hydration is impossible." / Outside

In Japan, there's a service that will quit your job for you. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

A man who had his iPhone stolen offers tips on precautions you should take now, just in case. / David Birch

Everything you need to know about the history of moleskine notebooks. / The Walrus

The organization that runs National Novel Writing Month says condemning people who use artificial intelligence to draft books is "classist and ableist." / 404 Media

A man who crafts puzzles for social media says there's nothing more exhilarating "than posing a multiple-choice problem on which 50,000 people do substantially worse than random chance." / Quanta Magazine

Unrelated: Some new rules for dropping off and picking up your kids at school. "Staff are standing by to launch your student into the window." / McSweeney's

Please note: We'll be off for Labor Day, and back in your inbox on Tuesday—see you then!

Hundreds of California officials have been convicted of corruption in the past decade—analysts say a political supermajority and little oversight have encouraged wrongdoing. / The New York Times [+]

Embroiled in a lawsuit after he broke a story about a player's alleged abuse, a top tennis writer is now disillusioned by the sport. / The Washington Post [+]

Multiple Gaza healthcare workers allege torture, abuse, and mistreatment while in Israeli custody. / Human Rights Watch

"If you're labeling some aerial image that's produced by a drone, are you training a toy airplane, or are you training a military drone?" Investigating the murky corners of AI training. / Inc.

As AI content proliferates, it's more likely AI will ingest that same content, which can dramatically degrade future results—here are examples. / The New York Times [+]

See also: From 2014, "The Triumphant Rise of the Shitpic."  / The Awl

Likely due to faulty return instructions, a Denver man keeps receiving Trump "Chillin Like a Felon" shirts in the mail. / Gizmodo 

See also: "Amazon is using my grocery purchases to sell me prescription drugs." / Vox

"To intentionally design something like, 'Let's make this worse.' It's like, wait, what?" The thinking behind satirical app design. / Embedded

Watch: A short documentary on the "Dumpster Archeologist" who sleuths out the stories hidden in people's garbage. / Vimeo

Meet the music obsessive behind Pop Music Activism, which organizes music fans to persuade labels to make forgotten tracks available for streaming. / BBC

The Moon now has its own time zone, "rather than having clocks gradually drift out of sync with Earth's time." / Atlas Obscura

Oakland's new fleet of electric school buses act as giant batteries that are capable of sending power back to the grid. / Grist

"Children's ability to wait for a treat…changed markedly depending on the context." The inherent bias of the Marshmallow Test and similar studies. / The Washington Post [+]

Eleven restaurants' unique variations on classic hamburgers, and a guide to the most beloved regional burger styles in the US. / The New York Times [+], InsideHook

The creator of One Million Checkboxes realizes a group of users were sending him a secret message in binary. / eieio.games

An explainer for why the Horn of Africa is on the cusp of war—basically because Ethiopia wants to be a coastal nation. / The New York Times [+]

Africa will finally get mpox vaccines amid a lot of criticism over delays caused by the World Health Organization's red tape. / The Guardian

Thanks to the new Kennedy-Gabbard team, Bernie-Trump voters are said to be back in play in American politics. / Wake Up to Politics

Ben Mathis Lilley: As a backroom power broker, Donald Trump Jr. is basically the complete opposite of Nancy Pelosi. / Slate

Unrelated: Almost half of TikTok users ages 18-29 use the platform to follow politics. / Pew Research Center

A global decline in condom use by adolescents in recent years is blamed on a drop in sex  education. / The Associated Press

The risk of death for people who donate a kidney has dropped by more than half in the last decade. / NBC News

Everything you need to know about why experts struggle to count mortality from the Black Death. / Asimov Press

Devoted, regular volunteering is found to build social cohesion in communities. / The Garden of Forking Paths

A computer scientist says our ability to learn over the long term is "educability," and it's a lot more important than cleverness. / The New Yorker

Experts say paleontology is "a honeypot of narcissists," "a snake pit of personality disorders," and "an especially nasty area of academia." / Intelligencer

Should scientific fraud be prosecuted? "It might help provide accountability in cases where no one is incentivized to provide it." / Vox

Unrelated: An expert tests whether Dr. Andrew Huberman's advice "is ruining your morning coffee." / YouTube

Spotify releases its "2024 Global Songs of Summer," with Billie Eilish at the top. / For the Record

A look inside the "maximalist wonderlands" of contemporary Italian restaurant design. / Architectural Digest

During the US Open, a lot of Italian tennis players and coaches eat at the same East Village trattoria. / The New York Times [+]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he's ready to present a "plan of victory" to end the war with Russia. / Semafor

More than 1.2 million oral polio vaccines have arrived in Gaza. How they'll be distributed without a ceasefire, or "polio pause," is unknown. / CNN

Following Venezuela's disputed election, journalists are using AI avatars to report news the Maduro's regime "deems unfit to print." / The Guardian

Since the pandemic, public school enrollment in the United States has declined by a million students, with closures falling disproportionately on Black schools. / ProPublica

Hong Kong tells any teenagers with sexual urges to ignore them and play badminton. / The South China Morning Post

Related: Hong Kong teenagers are "talking about 'friends with badminton' instead of 'friends with benefits.'" / The New York Times [+]

Elif Batuman on the difficulty of writing in August 2024: "What's the right word for looking inquisitively into an abyss?" / The Elif Life

A visualization of Elon Musk's tweets evolves from dad jokes and corporate ra-ra to right-wing politics. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Lauren Bans: Kamala Harris is going to make America laugh again. / The New Republic

The Paralympics open in Paris. Meet some of the Ukranian athletes, including war-wounded people and soldiers on leave. / The Economist

A round-up of transportation strikes to anticipate in Europe this autumn. / The Points Guy

A researcher says "blue zones"—i.e., places where people supposedly live longer—don't actually have much relevance. / Cremieux Recueil

"We all have a stake in you finding your place, because we're all better off when you like your life." Making the argument that there's a niche in society for everybody. / Experimental History

The latest shopping-bonanza report from Patricia Marx is about bunkers. / The New Yorker

The artist behind "Immersion (Piss Christ)" says he finds a picture of Donald Trump gleefully posing with his book about Trump paraphernalia "very comical." / The Art Newspaper

Photographs by Peggy Nolan of her seven children growing up. / Flashbak

This year is tracking to be the most deadly for police shootings in a decade. The previous record was set last year. / The Economist

"The moment of glamour seemed worth it." Kurt Andersen says RFK Jr. was his cocaine dealer at Harvard. / The Atlantic

Unrelated: Who is Kick Kennedy, reportedly Ben Affleck's new friend? / The Cut

Nearly half of American guys 18 to 29 say there is some or a lot of discrimination against men in society. / The New York Times [+]

About a third of women of reproductive age in the United States may not be getting enough iron. / Undark

Long Covid has pushed around one million Americans out of the labor force. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

See also: The government says that by the end of September people will be able to order up to four free Covid tests. / Goats and Soda

Restaurants and warehouses are outfitting workers this summer with ice vests. / The Wall Street Journal [+] 

"Biocrusts" are communities of "tiny, dirt-dwelling organisms that form a distinct crust on the top of soil in arid landscapes." / Knowable Magazine

The rate of global sea level rise is now the fastest it has been in 3,000 years. / Politico

Related: "The Climate Is Changing Faster Than Culture Can Cope." / Noema

Some comments from artist Ralph Steadman about comics, drawing, and what a jerk Hunter Thompson was. / Rolling Stone

Remembering when Nazis opened a bookstore in Los Angeles in 1933. / Lithub

In literature, what endures seems to have minimal correlation to contemporaneous popularity or contemporaneous acclaim. / Counter Craft

Psychoanalyst Jameison Webster says a new book about Sigmund Freud's thoughts on Woodrow Wilson "shook her" for its contemporaneity. / The Los Angeles Review of Books

Related, from last summer: "I Don't Need to Be a 'Good Person.' Neither Do You." / The New York Times [+]

"The kids get to decide when it's over." Charlie XCX says she wouldn't mind if "brat summer" became "brat fall." / New York Magazine

"The outcome of the race might hinge on whether they can keep the former president on script." Six factors that will define the final stretch of the election. / Wake Up to Politics

See also: Here are the individuals and organizations that have pumped the most money into the 2024 election. / The Washington Post [+]

The Isaac Hayes estate is suing the Trump campaign over its repeated use of "Hold On, I'm Coming" at rallies. / Billboard

After coming into possession of a Project 2025 duffel, a journalist finds the most valuable thing about it is the bag itself. / The Washington Post [+]

See also: "Goodbye backpacks. The cool kids are going back to school with a $155 Longchamp tote in hand." / Business Insider

Insurers play an outsize role in determining how much mental health care people are able to access—which can have devastating effects for patients in crisis. / NPR

"Gaza's 2.2 million people are now mainly confined to an area of roughly 15 square miles—smaller than the footprint of Manhattan." / The Wall Street Journal [+]

By examining ancient crystals, scientists believe that the first rain fell on Earth four billion years ago. / My Modern Met

"The fight had stopped suddenly, so I quickly reacted and shot some photos with a long lens." How some of the best Olympics photos were taken. / The Guardian

An orange grove in Tarzana will likely be replaced with luxury homes, ending a century of commercial citrus production in the San Fernando Valley. / Los Angeles Times

Researchers find a diversity of bacteria living inside microwave ovens—like those in Antarctica, the organisms are capable of withstanding especially extreme conditions. / TecScience

Photos from inside a technicolor 1978 Las Vegas doomsday bunker, complete with lighting to simulate different times of day. / designboom

See also: The iconic house from the cover of American Football's debut album is available to rent on Airbnb. / Pitchfork
​​
J.D. Salinger personally designed the rainbow-corner cover of The Catcher in the Rye—and his hand-drawn sketches are proof. / Literary Hub

"This music scene was shaped in isolation. You never created music with an audience in mind, only your friends." In Kosovo, techno is a symbol of resilience. / Condé Nast Traveler

Traded following a postponed game that will now resume, Danny Jansen will be the first player in Major League Baseball history to play for two teams in the same game. / Bleacher Report

TK CHICAGO

A veteran from Capitol Hill says if you want to take politics seriously, don't send money to candidates. / Matt's Five Points

This week in Chicago, a "Hotties for Harris" event was held for "the brat set," with slogans like "Tim Waltz Got Me Laid." / Intelligencer

Related: A guide to "the streamer dipshits" that Donald Trump keeps appearing with. / Read Max

For the first time in more than a decade, the Democrats' platform doesn't include abolishing the death penalty. / Huffpost

Most men in the United States support abortion rights—and a group of them are recruiting more guys to be active about it. / The Guardian

An early gay icon was a Republican who saw the federal government as the enemy of homosexuals. / reason

Unrelated: A very moving obituary for the globally famous gay penguin Sphen. / The New York Times [+]

A handful of companies are commercializing varieties of edible microbes. / Undark Magazine 

A related white paper from last year: "From air to your plate: tech startups making food from atmospheric CO2." / Nature 

Adopting a prosthesis as an extension of your body can be a challenge—moreso when the prosthetics company decorates it with logos. / The Atlantic [+]

Hinge releases a print zine full of love stories about couples that met on the app. (The stories are also online.) / MarketingDive, No Ordinary Love

"Snapchat is really good at making everyone involved think that they care about you." How teenagers rank each other on Snap. / The Cut

For your weekend long read: A story about the psychological dangers of doing big adventures when you're an experienced outdoors person. / Longreads

A mutated form of mpox has been circulating for months in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The country still doesn't have a single vaccine. / Bloomberg [+]

Former US national security adviser HR McMaster says Vladimir Putin deliberately exploited Donald Trump's "ego and insecurities." / The Guardian

Putin appears to be following the Soviet Bloc's Cold War playbook diligently, which means "more is yet to come." / War on the Rocks

Iran's morality police are beating and arresting men caught wearing shorts in public. / reason

Spencer Ackerman plans to destroy his Emmy if Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda's nomination is rescinded. / Forever Wars

An expert on white nationalists explains why she's hopeful about the presidential election: "I have faith in the normies." / Linkes I Would Gchat You if We Were Friends

Headline of the week: "How a small group of nuns in rural Kansas vex big companies with their investment activism." / The Associated Press

BIll Clinton's Labor Secretary says Social Security is in trouble because the trustees, himself included, didn't anticipate income inequality. / Robert Reich


The percentage of 19-year-olds in the US with a driver's license dropped from 87.3% in 1983 to 68.7% in 2022. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Two-thirds of books released by the top-ten trade publishers sell fewer than a thousand copies. / The New Yorker

Why does Ireland produce so many great writers? "The scale of the country is perfect. You can get to know it in your lifetime." / The Guardian

From February, a peek inside Austin Kleon's commonplace diary. / Austin Kleon

See also—it's a bit NSFW—a brief history behind a beautiful Art Deco alphabet of nude and semi-nude figures. / Flashbak

"She's not doing crazy, she's not doing too much." Designer Jennifer Daniel explains the new "little brown mushroom" emoji

President Biden approved a secret strategy in March to prepare the United States for possible coordinated nuclear confrontations with China, Russia and North Korea. / The New York Times [+]

Condoleezza Rice: US-China relations badly need new procedures and lines of communication to prevent an accidental catastrophe. / Foreign Affairs

Political influence campaigns are found to be "running wild" around the globe on Elon Musk's X. (Eighty-two countries will see elections in 2024.) / rest of world

Musk's Twitter takeover is now the worst buyout for banks since the financial crisis. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Related: X is the most popular app for 30 percent of 7- to 9-year-olds who use tablets. / TechCrunch

Unrelated: The reddest ("Hattie") and bluest ("Fiona") baby names. / nameberry

Federal authorities are looking to approve updated Covid vaccines late next week. / The Washington Post [+]

People are overdosing on semaglutide drugs they receive from compounding pharmacies. / Scientific American

Brett Scott: When you really think about it, the idea that corporations represent free markets is kinda ridiculous. / Altered States of Monetary Consciousness

A look at what it takes to manufacture a cotton T-shirt in the United States—not Bangladesh—and manage to sell it at Wal-Mart for $12.98. / GQ

"He looks like an NPR tote bag come to life." People confess to crushing on Ezra Klein. / Bustle

From earlier this month: What it was like to be a phone psychic for Miss Cleo. "I can't quickly explain the guilt I still carry." / Electric Literature

A new daily puzzle challenges you to find a quote in a crossword (of sorts). / Ironic Sans

Winners announced for this year's worst fictional opening lines. "She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck." / The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

China and the United States are making progress, albeit limited, in cutting their reliance on coal. / Semafor

At this point of the year, global wildfire burn is the highest it's been since 2012. / Sustainability by numbers

See also: A fashion designer's rain-harvesting hats, and a skiable museum from Netflix's former CEO.  / dezeen, Artsy

A "growing number" of far-left vigilantes are said to be doing the FBI's work for them: infiltrating the far right. / The New Yorker

"Facebook has been our greatest weapon. It's gotten us where we are today." A report on a right-wing militia fighting for its survival. / ProPublica

A wild story accounts for the FBI secretly running a smartphone network for some of the world's biggest criminals. / 404 Media

A mayoral candidate in Cheyenne, Wyo., wants an AI bot to run the city. / The Washington Post [+]

Jack Herrman: Actual ChatGPT users mostly want help with their homework, but they're also very horny. / New York Magazine

Unrelated: A fun anagram finder. / Anagrams.io

Old offices are being transformed into "work resorts," complete with food stalls, speakeasies, and private spin classes. / The New York Times [+]

Hacks and tips for enjoying this year's US Open, particularly if you want to see the tennis for free. / Sports Illustrated

Some thoughts from The Simpsons' Matt Groening about not retiring. Also, a personal essay by Molly Rosen about going commando during menopause. / El País, The Cut

A woman calls on men to wear their baseball caps backwards again—mostly because that's how JFK Jr. wore his. / Insidehook

In your weekly long (long) read, what happens when infidelity occurs between two pairs of writers? Obviously, everybody decides to write about it. / Vulture

Even as the GOP publicly lambastes Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, some Republican mayors in Ohio say it's making local energy projects possible. / Semafor

A researcher at a US agency developing moonshot health therapies suggests replacing brain tissue as a way to treat stroke victims—and eventually stave off aging. / MIT Technology Review

In a first, at least a quarter of people with brain injuries who are unable to respond physically are found to show brain activity when asked to imagine themselves moving. / Scientific American

"It's galling enough that Google expects you to want to put AI slop in your 'memories'; that's like injecting [your] mind with styrofoam, having Chat-GPT generate your diary." / Internal Exile

People are becoming emotionally dependent on—and falling in love with—AI voices. / Vox

See also: "Replika CEO Eugenia Kuyda says it's okay if we end up marrying AI chatbots." / The Verge

"I ran across the alarming phrase intellectual menopause a few months ago…and it naturally stuck in my brain given I'm pushing 50 and getting predictably angsty about it." / Ribbonfarm

At 38 years old (at least), the world's oldest common loon recently hatched her 41st and 42nd chicks. (She was already the world' most productive loon.) / Smithsonian Magazine

See also: At 38, James Milner began a record 23rd season in the Premier League this weekend. / AP

"He started with sinks and toilets, and worked up to hot water heaters and interior pipes." The blue collar jobs of Philip Glass. / The Honest Broker

In an art market downturn, young artists whose works sold for hundreds of thousands just a few years ago are now in the low five digits. / The New York Times [+]

How to start a professional sports organization—in this case, the Oakland Ballers, a homegrown baseball team to replace the departing A's. / The Ringer

"Calling off the game would be counterproductive to an investigation." An excerpt from a new book about the fraud that nearly took down McDonald's Monopoly game. / CrimeReads

Faxing isn't going away; in fact, due to regulatory needs—such as in health care—and technology advancements, the market is expected to continue growing. / ACM

Surveillance, but fun: Using a website that accesses traffic camera data, users can take selfies—of a sort—on NYC streets. / PetaPixel

Make your own Blockbuster Video VHS clamshell case insert with this editable template. / GitHub

Aphex Twin DJ'd a friend's wedding over the weekend. / Dazed

US officials say that Israel has done all it can militarily against Hamas in Gaza, and any further actions will only risk harming civilians. / The New York Times [+]

See also: How Israel's finance minister is using obscure policy to connect a new West Bank settlement with Jerusalem. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

"In the future, we might look back and see the most important difference between the Biden and Harris campaigns is their level of trust in the press corps." / The Editorial Board

Why California's new AI legislation is so controversial: It's not just the tech companies who don't want oversight, it's also academics who say the law will hamper their work. / Platformer

See also: This week, a district court judge ruled a group of artists can proceed with a lawsuit alleging their art was used to train Stable Diffusion. / Hyperallergic

"It's mind blowing to think that Russian fisheries could capture in one week what one of the biggest seafood companies in the US forecasts for the year, but that is exactly what happened." / Why is this interesting?

By controlling land and financing, a small group of home builders artificially restricts the supply of new homes in America. / BIG

"Global banks aren't living up to targets to cut their financing of activities that are directly fueling climate change." / Bloomberg [+]

Out of print since the legal settlement over its album art, Kind of Bloop—the chiptune remake of Kind of Blue—will be available for preorder on vinyl starting tomorrow. / Waxy

"Forget Brat summer; we've moved on to Gregorian chants." From typography to synthesizers, the mood of the moment is Future Medieval. / It's Nice That

See also: An in-depth look at what Teenage Engineering's EP-1320, the "world's first medieval electronic instrument" actually does. / YouTube

And also: "They call it Dungeon Synth because anyone who makes it should be locked up." / X

Researchers find horses are intelligent enough to understand rules faster than many other animals—and to know they can ignore the same rules just because. / VICE

A Q&A with an expert who studies diseases common to humans and animals, in hopes of better understanding their root causes and finding new treatments. / STAT

See also: How the world's last wild red wolves are avoiding extinction. / The Washington Post [+]

"'No Excel spreadsheet wine list,' meaning: no taking a wine and multiplying it by 3x or 4x no matter what the wine is." NYC restaurants reveal their wine markups. / Punch