Biden pledges executive action on climate change following Manchin's choice to sink the administration's environmental legislation. / Associated Press

The fossil-fuel industry is doubling down on plastic. A major player is Saudi Arabia, though the costs are being felt in Texas. / Public Health Watch

How record-breaking temperatures drive up food prices and—unrelatedly, probably—destroy your sleep. / Grist, WIRED

Europe may be sweltering now, but it's facing a big energy crisis this winter—a threat "more insidious" than a recession or inflation. / The Economist

China's GDP slows sharply in the second quarter, the worst showing since 1992. (See also: a tumble in European car sales.) / Reuters

Amazon has a form that law enforcement can—and do—fill out to access data from your Ring cameras and Echo devices without a warrant. / The Verge

Texas has nearly 200,000 disabled residents on a waitlist for state services—some have been waiting for more than a decade. / Houston Chronicle

Why so many unofficial food days in Japan? Puns, language puzzles, historical events, and sometimes because industry says so. / Atlas Obscura

According to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, there is only one correct way to express the date. (But he's not wrong?) / Twitter

Getty makes available a "Black History & Culture Collection" of 30,000 photos for free non-commercial, educational use. / Colossal

Some notes on "runaway wives," or what it took for a woman to leave an abusive husband in medieval London. / History Workshop

History, as a college major, is tumbling. One reason why, according to the author: Historians no longer play much of a role in society. / The Scholar's Stage

How did "recipe developer" become a path to find fame? The Bon App test kitchen + pandemic + social media. / Gawker

Synthesizer nerds appreciate the ultrasonic vocalizations made by Weddell seals underwater. / cdm

Listen: A selection of recent (and not-so-recent) modular synth music. / Bandcamp

Astronomers detect a radio burst "with a pattern similar to a heartbeat" from a galaxy roughly a billion light-years away. / CNN