Even as calm winds are providing firefighters in Los Angeles a chance to get ahead of the wildfires, forecasts show more rounds of wind are on the way. / Accuweather

As bad as the stress is right now for Angelenos, erroneous emergency alerts urging evacuations are only adding to the trauma. / Los Angeles Times

The Eaton Fire has devastated historic Altadena, displacing many Black families and destroying legacies. / BET

Joan Didion, 1989: "Anyone who has ever spent fire season in Los Angeles knows some of its special language." / The New Yorker

After hearing arguments this morning, the Supreme Court appears likely to uphold the TikTok ban, requiring ByteDance to divest or shut down the app in the US by Jan. 19. / Axios

See also: Local news just invented yet another fake TikTok trend: the door-kicking challenge. / User Mag

How the TikTok ban in the US would actually work: New installs of the app would be prohibited, effectively ending bug fixes and slowly eroding the app. / WIRED

Trump's advisers are looking for a public health emergency that can be used to justify plans for invoking restrictions on border migration. / The New York Times [+]

"As the argument might go, the threats that such non-physical violent acts pose are not only dire but also constantly imminent. Hence, every act of resistance is a matter of self-defense." Why did Luigi Mangione claim self defense? / Duke Center for Firearms Law

Canada is finally recognizing the life-saving work of Indigenous people, who for centuries have often been the first to help when disaster strikes British Columbia's coast. / Hakai Magazine

The science behind why bad sleep impedes the brain's ability to discard intrusive thoughts. / Scientific American

See also: A new study shows drinking coffee in the morning is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. / The Independent

"It could help with grief and death anxiety, and, you know, hopefully help people treat each other a little better." The scientists studying life after death. / The New York Times [+]

A history of women using thread—such as in embroidery, knitting, and crochet—as a medium for resistance. / Aeon

You must continue clicking for stimulation. / Neal.fun

California Governor Gavin Newsom says "there's no fire season—it's fire year." / The Los Angeles Times

A climate reporter in Pacific Palisades relates what it was like to lose her home. Similar: watching your home burn on a Ring camera. / New York Magazine, Curbed

Bandsplain's Yasi Salek pays emotional tribute to her burned house in Altadena. / Instagram

From 2022, a profile of the billionaire couple who use 150 billion gallons of California's water each year. / More Perfect Union

Homeowners in risky parts of California can't obtain adequate coverage as insurers flee the state. / Bloomberg 

Some of the world's biggest shipping nations back a flat tax on the industry's carbon emissions. / Semafor

"I knew nothing much about geopolitics before I left home." Interview with a war photographer. / China Underground

Remembering the panic over "political correctness" as a major American export in the 1980s and 1990s. / Slate

People in the US, UK, and Australia say they've noticed a rise in "flaking." / The Guardian

At the end of December, nearly 23 percent of people tested positive for norovirus at a sampling of clinical laboratories around the US. / Vox

Louisa Thomas explains why Magnus Carlsen, the best chess player in the world, got in trouble for wearing jeans to a tournament. / The New Yorker

Related: Jimmy Carter projected authenticity through denim. / The New York Times [+]

Unrelated: Photographs of Georgia O'Keefe at home. / The Atlantic

Migrants who successfully reach the United States use TikTok to document their new lives. / The New Yorker

A new cache of documents reveals how the CIA monitored Latino civil rights pioneers. / axios

The Heritage Foundation plans to "identify and target" editors at Wikipedia who it says are "abusing their position." / The Forward

In North Carolina, Democrats say they're experiencing "a nonviolent version of January 6." / Mother Jones
 
Wildfires spread through LA's Pacific Palisades, Altadena, Pasadena, and Sylmar. / The Los Angeles Times

"I really think this is a precursor for genocide." A former safety employee responds to Meta's new policies on speech. / Platformer 

An essay recalls the early dot-com days in San Francisco. "It seemed like everyone—in the Bay Area especially—was trying to get a piece of the action." / User Mag

Conspiracy theories swirl around the death of a software enegineer at Open AI. / The San Francisco Standard

Gisèle Pelicot doesn't see the men who raped her as aberrations, but as products of a "macho and patriarchal society." / The London Review of Books

New lithium discoveries have been made in both the US and China. / Semafor

Divers will soon move into an underwater shelter meant to be "a stepping stone to a more permanent modular habitat system." / IEEE Spectrum

Unrelated: 102,343 stuffed toys descend on an ice rink in a moment of "sweet, cuddly mayhem." / BBC News

A "hyper-realistic" robotic puppy is meant to comfort dementia patients. Meanwhile: a yakitori grill that resembles a toaster. / dezeen, Spoon & Tamago

Coming soon, a robot cat that will blow on your coffee. / TechCrunch

See also: After ruining the macchiato, Starbucks introduces a gigantic cortado. / Sprudge

With all the doomsday headlines, why continue to drink alcohol? "I enjoy doing dangerous things, and there's nothing more dangerous than defying fate." / Trying!

An Italian village forbids its residents from becoming ill—to highlight the country's decimated healthcare system. / BBC News

Unhoused people explain what it's like when city workers trash their belongings. / ProPublica

New and ongoing programs may be solving Los Angeles's biggest problems: traffic and homelessness. / The Atlantic [+]

A man was trapped in a Waymo while circling LA's airport, apparently causing him to miss his flight. / The Los Angeles Times

Unrelated: A new study finds California's squirrels beginning to eat other rodents. / CNN

Meta abandons fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram likely as a way to please President-elect Trump. / Kottke

Highlights from a trove of documents sent by a mole inside right-wing militias. / ProPublica

Ross Rosenfeld says it's a weird time in American politics to be a libertarian. / The New Republic

The Pentagon apparently tried to produce content last year with MrBeast, Kelly Clarkson, and Guy Fieri. / Rolling Stone

"Where does Taylor Swift meet the mythic?" An interview with TMN favorite Jamieson Webster, author and psychoanalyst. / Trebuchet

American dudes are visiting bookstores to read crime novels connected to hunting and fishing. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

A list of the most popular gifts received by Gen Z for Christmas this year: digital cameras, Ugg boots, peptide lip treatment. / After School

Headline of the week? "People Are Eating Their Christmas Trees, and You Can Too." / VICE

See also: A website to send yourself a letter that'll arrive on the next New Year's Eve. / Letter to 2025

"Technically, all pandemic flus start as bird flus." Everything you never wanted to know about H5N1. / Astral Codex Ten

Following the user exodus from X, Russia's "Matryoshka" disinformation network heads to Bluesky, posting videos to undermine US support of Ukraine. / The Insider

A violent criminal hacking ring has been targeting an unexpected wealth of non-public data: U-Haul user accounts. / 404 Media

"The popular vote result was almost entirely a collapse in support for Harris and Democrats, not an increase in support for Trump and MAGA." America didn't swing right, according to a new electoral analysis. / Weekend Reading

From 2021: If war correspondents reported on the MAGA riots in the same way they reported on coup attempts in other countries. / McSweeney's

Perhaps whether we are free or fated, morality and politics, science and medicine, art and literature will all go their merry or melancholy ways, unaffected. New books on free will. / The Hedgehog Review

A new documentary and book chronicle how New Wave music played a vital role for Vietnamese Americans growing up in Orange County in the 1980s. / Hyperallergic

Thanks to Illinois's newest and largest solar farm, all of Chicago's city buildings now run on 100% clean power. / Grist

When a geologist fought with cartographers over how to accurately shade relief maps in order to account for natural sunlight. / Swiss National Museum

How to ditch Duolingo and actually learn Japanese: First, you're going to need a grammar guide. / Unseen Japan

See also: Why Japanese cities are truly awesome. / Noahpinion

Ana Gavrilovska's favorite jazz albums of 2024. / Sick Sad Motherslug

An advent-style calendar of everything entering the public domain in 2025. / The Public Domain Review

Where every line is exposition: a very Hallmark supercut Christmas. / YouTube

"Of those 200 casualties, only 10 were confirmed as known Hamas operatives." Interviews with active-duty IDF soldiers about what's really happening in Gaza. (Content warning) / Haaretz

See also: 10 conflicts to watch in 2025. / International Crisis Group

As Biden departs office, a federal appeals court strikes down the FCC's authority to impose net neutrality rules. / The Verge

Right-wing attacks on Wikipedia follow a familiar playbook—from cherry-picked claims of bias, to questionable demands for balance, to attacking the entity's right to exist. / Citation Needed

When viral memes of drones doing amazing things are really just demonstrations of military capabilities. / Joshua Citarella's Newsletter

Climate change and increased Arctic development increase the risk for the thaw and spread of microbes that are more diverse and complex than the viruses we know. / Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

This week, Australia's new climate legislation takes effect, requiring business owners to disclose their emissions and deliver plans for how they'll approach future risks. / ABC

See also: "We are often pushed to equate 'climate action' with buying different stuff, when what we really need is to step off the treadmill altogether." / Slate

Mexico says it's creating a phone app for migrants to alert relatives and the nearest consulate in case they're detained by US immigration. / Axios

The Year That Was and Wasn't: We asked some of our favorite journalists, writers, and thinkers: What were the most important events of 2024, and what were the least? / The Morning News

See also: Links galore in 2024's Year in Weird and Stupid Futures. / Read Max

"In the search for the invisible components of the universe, dark matter reached a discouraging milestone." The year in physics. / Quanta

Compared to women, do American men really read less fiction? "It doesn't look like anyone has actually fact-checked this question in quite a while." / Vox

"A typical shot frames two characters, waist up, in profile as the camera slowly dollies across them, a slow and constant whir meant to inject motion into an otherwise inert frame." Why Netflix looks like that. / n+1

In 1900, a tinkerer set out to improve the light bulb's illumination abilities, and accidentally ended up inventing the snow globe. / Smithsonian Magazine

Tis the season... for a list of causes favored by TMN and friends. We'll see you again on January 3, 2025. Peace.

The Freedom to Read Foundation protects the public's right to access information and materials in libraries without limitations. / Freedom to Read Foundation

Survival International campaigns for the collective rights of Indigenous, tribal, and uncontacted peoples. / Survival International

GiveDirectly enables donors to send money to people in poverty with no strings attached. / GiveDirectly

Augusta Heritage Center brings music, art, and culture to students across West Virginia through summer camps and in-school programs. / Augusta Heritage Center

Raising awareness about the maternal health crisis—because so many deaths from childbirth complications are preventable. / Every Mother Counts

Supporting reproductive justice for marginalized communities. / Sister Song

We all know this one? Fighting the fight against gun violence. / Everytown for Gun Safety

United Palestine Appeal has a focus this year on medicine, food, and water. / United Palestine Appeal

See also: The Palestine Red Crescent Society. / PRCS

The ICLC is the only provider of legal services on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. / Inner City Law Center

Community Support Services provides training, life skills, and respite services for disabled individuals and their families in Chicago. / Community Support Services

The Chicago Food Depository distributes food and provides services to a network of food pantries, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters. / Chicago Food Depository

Dogs: They're the best! Wags and Walks rescues and rehabilitates animals that often get overlooked in shelters. / Wags and Walks

Related: Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary ensures older dogs get all the love and medical care they need. / OFSDS

In an unwritten, unannounced policy change, Louisiana's Dept. of Health is forbidding employees from promoting Covid, flu, or mpox vaccines. / NPR

Photos of daily life for the Palestinian people—"before all hell broke loose"—by Adam Rouhana. / VICE

An interactive exploration of data from the Fort Pulaski tide gauge, 15 miles east of Savannah, Ga., where sea levels have been tracked for 90 years. / The Washington Post [+]

How Peter Fischli and David Weiss made a snowman that's remained unmelted since 1987—it uses excess energy from a German power plant. / Artnet

"We are being slowly erased, but instead of passing peacefully into the vale with the ebb and flow of soothing waves, we are being actively replaced by garbage." On link rot. / The Verge

As a sort of performance art, a developer trained an AI on a "grab bag of inadvisable data" and unleashed it on X, where it launched a memecoin and made $1.5 million. / WIRED

See also: "After twelve years of writing about bitcoin, here's how my thinking has changed." / Moneyness

Good AI: Generate your own weird Victorian Christmas card. / Glif

Bad AI: When AI won't show what Texas Trash looks like, it's going to give you appetizing images of Meow Mix instead. / Favorite Flavor Recipes

Though if you'd like a real recipe for Texas Trash—a holiday standby centered around Chex cereal—here's a classic, part of a trove of recipe boxes saved from estate sales. / Yesterdish

"Oh, but these marshmallows were simmered in copper kettles, you tell me. And in Denver." The 2024 hater's guide to the Williams-Sonoma catalog. / Defector

What happens when reproductions of ancient artifacts are so accurate that we can no longer even feel the difference? / Internal exile

"Is this some kind of Producers thing, where you're trying to create a flop?" A producer attempts to pitch The Nutcracker. / McSweeney's

See also: From Wendy Carlos to Migos, the coolest songs that sample The Nutcracker. / Grace Spelman Music Project

Seven playlists for different types of holiday cheer. Also, Christmas music that won't make you murder someone. / Fluxblog, Spotify

"When you're 11, you're at the mercy of everything: parents, teachers, even TV schedules. Most of all, in 1987, I was at the mercy of supply and demand." A Christmas wish for an NES. / The Barbed Wire

For the person who has everything, give them a new obsession: a new daily wordless game. / Quizmoji

Jamelle Bouie: It's time the Democrats take up the mantle of an opposition party, if they even understand what that means. / The New York Times [+]

Texas Gov. Abbott has purchased billboards in Mexico and Central America warning migrants they risk being raped if they cross the border. / San Antonio Current

Texas has been trying to build a border wall since 2021, but resistance from landowners has so far limited construction to just 6% of the length of the border. / The Texas Tribune

See also: After removing the Bible from school libraries as part of a ban on sexually explicit materials, a Texas school district reversed course once the state intervened. / KVII

The New European's person of the year is Gisèle Pelicot, who has "changed the rules, reversed the language, and given women permission to reject shame." / The New European

"An entity claiming to be United Healthcare is sending bogus copyright claims to internet platforms to get Luigi Mangione fan art taken off the internet." / 404 Media

See also: According to alleged editorial chats, the New York Times has been telling staff to "dial back" photos of Luigi Mangione. / Hyperallergic

Earlier this year, the Biden administration extended Medicaid and CHIP to cover some traditional Native American healing practices. / Cronkite News

"Questioning the science is seen as invalidating people's trauma." What the most famous book about trauma gets wrong. / Mother Jones

Researchers are using AI to detect and study bird calls, changing the ways we track, understand, and protect migratory bird species. / MIT Technology Review

Google Street View captured the moment a man was loading what is purportedly a body into the back of a car, helping police crack a murder case. / BBC News

The authors of a study on black plastic cookware acknowledge a math error that overstated the amount of toxins that can leach into food, but still conclude the utensils pose a danger. / Ars Technica

Some online casinos have set up shop on Roblox, where children as young as 12 have been gambling using their in-game currency. / Sky News

The first-known rip of Yukio Ninagawa's 1984 Medea performance "took about 6 months and at least 3 destroyed VCRs to do correctly." / Internet Archive

See also: "I feel like the Coffee Mate decision makers really took away the wrong message from these morality plays." On the White Lotus + Coffee Mate collab. / Sprudge

A fascinating math explainer of the Moon. / Bartosz Ciechanowski

The Department of Homeland Security says China, Russia, Iran, and Israel are spying on Americans through their phones. / 404 Media

Cybersecurity officials are worried about Trump's transition team relying on private emails that can be hacked. / Politico

An eye-opening look at how and why right-wing trolls are trying to blame school shootings on trans people. / Shatter Zone

Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos: One of the unnoticed themes of the recent election was our depolarization. / The Washington Post [+]

Ever since Covid, "crunchy" has gone more individualistic and right-wing, and some old-school crunchy folks are bowing out. / The New York Times [+]

See also: How many Republicans know that RFK is an environmental lawyer? (Poll source.) / Bluesky, Quinnipiac

California declares a state of emergency over bird flu. / CBS News

Today's bankers are less inclined to cocaine, more to Adderall and other ADHD drugs. / The Wall Street Journal [+] 

Are today's inventions less interesting than those made during the Industrial Revolution? No, "but the focus of innovation has shifted." / New Cartographies

An argument that "timeless style" is nonsense. / Blackbird Spyplane

A tool searches works of literature for words that never appear in their texts. / Bewitched

Unrelated: A short novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky becomes a social media craze. / The Guardian

Among the year's worst food and dining trends: croissants that look like they were designed "by AI rather than human hands." / Eater

Photographs by Kelly Burgess explore the influences of Puritanical folklore on contemporary New England. / Booooooom

Home foundations in New England are found to be crumbling due to a mineral called pyrrhotite. / Undark Magazine

See also: A personal essay about a sunken neighborhood in LA. / Zocalo Public Square

A roundup of license plate numbers rejected in Indiana this year—including, yes, HWK TUAH. / Fox59

Deforestation of the Amazon in Brazil has been halved once again, thanks to president Lula da Silva. / Sustainability by numbers

New studies find our skin can generate antibodies, independent of the rest of our immune system. / Nature

Today's theories about the shape of the universe are thought to be "almost certainly wrong." / Port

As linked here last month (over here), the fall of Syria's Bashar al-Assad has overturned the Middle East's most profitable drug network. / The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal [+]

Palestinians explain how they struggle every day to find food for their kids. / Al Jazeera

See also: "The story of UNRWA indexes a different kind of war, one enacted through laws and lists which mobilize a politics of ban, sanction, and punishment on targeted entities." / Phenomenal World

For NBC's Tonight Show, social media distribution has become the new cultural currency. / The Hollywood Reporter

Vibes are perhaps "both bone-deep and ephemeral nonsense," but they're also replacing facts. / The Guardian

What it's like to stage Hamlet inside Grand Theft Auto. / The Face

Unrelated: Remembering a Sony Playstation created to celebrate Canada Day. / Obsolete Sony's Newsletter

Honda and Nissan are contemplating a merger to create the world's third-largest auto group. / CNBC

"How can something so simple be so mysterious?" Philip Sherburne's favorite albums of the year. / Futurism Restated

In case you missed it, we recently dropped the short list for the 2025 Rooster competition, presented by Field Notes. / The Tournament of Books, Field Notes

Some thoughts on reconsidering Cormac McCarthy's work in light of recent news. / Lithub

Some thoughts on Elvis Presley's worst songs. / The Oxford American

Some thoughts on gardens painted in December light. / Still Sketching

Public art installations in Oregon are being attacked by googly eyes. / Smithsonian Magazine

Ukraine claims the killiing of Russia's head of chemical, biological, and radiological weapons with a bomb attack in Moscow. / The Kyiv Independent

After many reforms, Argentina exits its deep recession. / CNN

Executives in the billionaire-protection industry say business is up. / Bloomberg [+]

Related: A brief history of superyachts—and how they explain the world. / Mother Jones

There are 700 million acres of forest in the continental United States. Of that, 40 percent is owned by private individuals. / Yale University Press

Five medical breakthroughs from 2024—preventive food allergy medication, schizophrenia treatment, etc. / Scientific Discovery

Nearly half of American teenagers say they are online "constantly." / The Associated Press
 
Starbucks is said to be "the new Venmo" for Gen Alpha teenagers. / Fast Company

Our favorite online game of the week? Ending a microwave-cooking time closest to zero. / Vercel.app

Anthony Lane on the history of risotto. / The New Yorker

A very long, "comprehensive-ish" guide to Chinese cookery. / Chinese Cooking Demystified

Related: "Ignore the wine snobs, granny sherry is delicious." / Drinking culture

A round-up of design-driven game designers figuring out how to balance aesthetics with playability. / It's Nice That

An essay about the life of professional wrestling by a wrestler. "I think about multitudes." / The Players' Tribune

In agreeing to give $15 million to Trump's presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit, ABC News broke the first rule of resisting autocracy: "Don't obey in advance." / AP, American Crisis

Related: "Trump and his picks threaten more lawsuits over critical coverage." / The New York Times [+]

Florida banned local authorities from overseeing worker safety in high temperatures—an investigation now finds businesses haven't reported at least half of their heat deaths. / Tampa Bay Times

A New Jersey gubernatorial candidate comes under fire for faking a Spotify Wrapped that shows Springsteen as his top five songs of the year. / NJ.com

See also: A montage of Bruce Springsteen performing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" from 1978 to 2016. / YouTube

"A vicar has been forced to apologise after telling a group of schoolchildren aged 10 and 11 that Father Christmas was not real." / BBC News

Eighty years ago on Christmas Day, a plane carrying big band legend Glenn Miller went missing without a trace. / NPR

Congress tells Apple and Google to be prepared to remove TikTok from their app stores on Jan. 19. / Reuters

Related: This time around the ban isn't over China, but about TikTok's refusal to curtail pro-Palestinian content. / Matzko Minute

"Now I'm a network and nobody can tell us what the fuck to do." Before MTV there was Night Flight, whose original creator has relaunched the subculture haven. / Pitchfork

A car customizer hopes to get a Cybertruck approved for British roads, where sharp angles on vehicles are forbidden because of the threat to cars and pedestrians. / WIRED

Built with a reverse set of amino acids and sugars, synthetic "mirror cells" pose an "unprecedented risk" for all life, scientists warn. / Smithsonian Magazine

The founder and lead of Google Quantum AI suggests the speed of its new chip may be because it's borrowing "computation from parallel universes." / Newsweek

As dinosaur fossils hit record-breaking auction prices, a fractional investment platform plans to offer up shares in a Stegosaurus skeleton later this week. / Observer

Not for the squeamish: Tales of 18th-century dentistry. / The Quack Doctor

The world's oldest surviving bond just turned 400 years old and pays €13.61 of interest a year. / Financial Times

Say goodbye to the rest of your day with this mashup of Google maps and Wikipedia entries. / Matthew Siu

President-elect Trump invites Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration next month. / CBS News

Some Democrats are regretting going sour on Elon Musk. Meta gives $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund. /  Politico, The Wall Street Journal [+]

President Biden will commute the sentences of around 1,500 people. / Reuters

In Canada, euthanasia now accounts for nearly one in 20 deaths. / BBC News

In Mexico, an app with an AI diagnostic tool has led to a nine percent drop in suicide. / rest of world

Artificial intelligence startups are moving into San Francisco's empty office buildings. / CNBC

A therapist describes what it's like to work with "designed" teenagers in Silicon Valley. / WIRED 

The tipping point for self-driving cars is said to be near. "The fact is that self-driving cars are getting safer." / IEEE Spectrum

See also: Photographs of children working in Nigeria's lithium mines. / The Associated Press

People are reverse engineering Netflix and creating unauthorized archives of shows. / 404 Media

Why was Spotify's "wrapped" so poorly received this year? Partly because its software isn't fun to use. / The New Yorker

Matthew Haughey explains what it's like to experience a "spamalanche" attack. / A Whole Lotta Nothing

The best-selling specialty pizza in Taiwanese Pizza Hut history? One adorned with calamari, fried chicken, and Oreos. / Gastro Obscura

See also: A Japanese convenience store launches a drinkable mayonnaise. / The Independent

Which economy did best in 2024? Spain, Ireland, and Denmark. / The Economist

"How has this year been for you?" Some responses from Palestinians. / The London Review of Books

A photographic tour of Bashar al-Assad's presidential palace. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Once again, a massive wildfire has erupted in Malibu, Calif. / The Los Angeles Times

"They're indifferent to the people that are buried there. They're indifferent to the history." Inside a Texas family's fight to honor its ancestors. / The Barbed Wire

David J. Morris: Male underrepresentation is an uncomfortable topic in a literary world. / The New York Times [+]

Some thoughts on trends from Pinterest's head of forecasting. "Escapism might become more of a reality." / The Trend Report

Unrelated: Salad dressings to avoid at grocery stores. / The Takeout

What exactly are college football's "cupcake games?" "If you'll allow me to use the industry-specific term here, they're all dogshit." / The New Yorker

Attending a premiere for AI movies, which aren't made with love, but "for TCL...as part of a pilot program designed to normalize AI movies and TV shows."  / 404 Media

There have been essentially no G-rated movies in recent years—does general audience entertainment still exist? / Tedium

The best movies of the year according to John Waters. "Stupid critics. Gaga so good. Joker so right. Die, dumbbells, die!." / Vulture

Israel carries out large-scale attacks across Syria, targeting airports and strategic military infrastructure. / Al Jazeera

Related: The United States carries out dozens of airstrikes on over 75 Islamic State targets. / Politico

Anne Applebaum: The end of the Assad regime creates something new, and not only in Syria. / The Atlantic [+]

What it's like to be a Palestinian research scientist in Gaza and the West Bank. / The New York Times [+]

A profile of a beloved, powerful oncologist in Helena, Mont., suspected of harming his patients. / ProPublica

See also: A profile of a San Francisco engineer who picks up garbage for a hobby. / CBS News

Less than 20 percent of Americans have gotten the updated Covid booster. Doctors explain why it's a good idea. / Goats and Soda

People in New Jersey are reporting an uptick in drone sightings. Officials don't know where they're coming from. / The New York Times [+]

A round-up of some of the year's best astronomy photographs. Also, a round-up of the year's best gadgets. / Royal Museums Greenwich, dezeen

A "professional scratcher" is someone who drags their nails across a client's back for $100 an hour or more. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Saahil Desai swoons over the Ooni pizza oven. "There has simply never been a better time to make pizza at home." / The Atlantic [+]

Unrelated: A wealthy NFL quarterback bought himself a replica of the modern Batmobile. / Robb Report

And in case you missed it, last week we announced the short list for the 2025 Touranment of Books! / The Tournament of Books

The USDA finally orders testing of the nation's milk supply for bird flu, with the initial round of tests to begin in mid-December.  / NBC News

The District of Columbia is suing Amazon for neglecting to provide Prime deliveries to two predominantly Black neighborhoods, while still charging customers for the faster service. / AP

How Americans got to this point of hating their healthcare system: It's a blame game between pharma, insurers, and hospitals, and patients are the victims. / Vox

Jia Tolentino: "Thompson's murder is one symptom of the American appetite for violence; his line of work is another." / The New Yorker

According to ICE data, nearly half of the 1.4 million people with pending deportations cannot go back to their home countries. / The Washington Post [+]

Related: Trump may revive the plan of sending migrants to locations that are not their home countries—the lawsuit over doing this in 2019 is still pending in federal court. / NBC News

See also: A crowdsourced spreadsheet of local immigration advocacy and support organizations. / Google Docs

"You have to oppose this motherfucker. You have to remember the Central Park Five." How a strongman gets stronger. / How Things Work

In a secret, largely unscripted 1983 war game, the Pentagon found nuclear de-escalation depends on clear communications—which are sorely lacking today. / The New York Times [+]

Chuck E. Cheese's animatronic bands are playing their final shows this month, as plans to phase out the dolls at all but five locations take effect. / IEEE Spectrum

The fashion trend of the moment for rich guys is Nehru jackets that cost $4,000. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

If PreCheck grows to include—as TSA hopes—70% of passengers, at what point does the regular lane become faster? / The Washington Post [+]

Three years after Larry McMurtry's death, his Archer City, Texas, bookstore has changed hands twice, and will now reopen as a literary center. / San Antonio Express-News

See also: Photos of people and places on a back-and-forth road trip between Austin and Los Angeles, by Bryan Schutmaat.  / The Atlantic [+]

For the first time since 2011, three quarters of Sonic Youth performed live together last Friday. / Consequence

Hex codes for all 16.7 million colors; also, every UUID. / HexColorList, eieio.games

In a new study, bird flu is found to be one mutation away from becoming more easily transmitted between humans. / Scientific American

The European Space Agency has launched a pair of satellites capable of creating artificial solar eclipses, which could help scientists better understand geomagnetic storms. / AP

Sally Rooney: "A handful of voters in US swing states have more power to determine the speed and scale of planetary overheating than billions of other people on Earth." / The Irish Times

Following the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, other major health insurance companies take their leadership pages offline. / 404 Media

See also: Responding to online vitriol after the UHC murder, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield cancels a policy change that would limit surgical anesthesia coverage. / NBC News

A Black farmer who reclaimed the plantation where his ancestors were enslaved has now forces to contend with, among them the USDA: "It really is modern-day sharecropping." / Bitter Southerner

Notre Dame has reopened five years after a fire damaged parts of the cathedral—here are before-and-after visualizations of what's changed. / The Washington Post [+]

For your weekend wanderlust: A 10-day long bike ride through Italy. / The Radavist

Atlas Shrugged (Part II) on Blu-Ray, a truly deranged planter, and more recommendations in a heinous gift guide for sworn enemies. / ¡Hola Papi!

Just because you can deep-fry Coca-Cola, should you? / The Takeout

"This was not the classic 18th-century 'old, corpulent, port-and-pheasant' gout but 'young, cool' gout, if such a thing exists." New books on diet, health, and identity. / Los Angeles Review of Books

Unrelated: On inadvertently turning a cat into a turkey fiend. / Defector

Rooster fans: The shortlist, judges, and Zombie poll for the 2025 Tournament of Books, presented by Field Notes, is now live! / Field Notes, the Tournament of Books

For better and certainly for worse, the 10 moments that defined podcasting in 2024. / Vulture

"There is nothing more poignant than an end of year death for a Christmas hitmaker." Wham!'s "Last Christmas" at 40. / The Quietus

A visualization of places in the United States at highest risk from disasters and insurance hikes. / The Guardian

Interview with a physicist focused on biobased materials. "The question is whether we have enough." / Knowable Magazine 

When will we get nuclear fusion? After 2050, though first "we've got to survive the next decades without it." / Ben James

The White House and various companies and groups announce a universal "Plug and Charge" program for electric vehicles. / Ars Technica

In Vietnam, EV charging networks are being developed by small investors. / rest of world

Unrelated, from Sarah Jeong: "When the South Korean president declares martial law on Tuesday night, I am fairly drunk." / The Verge

Car fans are trying to figure out if Jaguar's design overhaul is refreshing or revolting. / Motortrend

Mephisto's orthopedic shoes are said to now be cool. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

The year in Spotify for Gen Z customers globally: Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Bad Bunny. / After School

Unrelated: "With Puccini died the great opera tradition." / The New York Times [+]

Tinder releases its predictions for dating in 2025—e.g., "nano-ships" and "micro-connections." / Mashable 

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt says Gen Z men may wind up preferring AI girlfriends to real women. / Fortune

See also: People turning to AI for companionship "are finding the experience surprisingly meaningful, unexpectedly heartbreaking, and profoundly confusing." / The Verge