The ToB, presented by Field Notes, is live!

It's the 2023 Tournament of Books, presented by Field Notes! Yay! It’s time to Rooster!

Thousands of Chinese retirees take to the streets of Wuhan and Dalian, to protest against cuts to their health benefits. / Al Jazeera

French unions stage another day of strikes in protest of a plan to raise the retirement age. / Bloomberg

Residents of the Ohio village upended by a train derailment grow furious when the train company won’t talk to them. / NPR

BP, Shell, and ExxonMobil quietly back away from their climate promises. / Grist

Argentina and Uruguay confirm cases of bird flu, following Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. / Reuters

Unrelated: Thomas Medicus’s new “Human Animal Binary'' installation. / Colossal

Has “middle age” disappeared as a life stage? “There’s no point trying to impose chronological age on what is or is not middle age.” / The Guardian 

Roxane Gay and her wife each recount traveling to Antarctica for a 60th birthday, to see a total eclipse of the sun. / AFAR

When restaurants win Michelin stars, their menu descriptions get longer. / Twitter

See also: A brief history of coffee prices. / Sprudge

Replika, the "AI companion who cares," experiences some abrupt changes to its erotic roleplay features, leaving many users confused. / Know Your Meme 

Kevin Roose: Help, Bing won’t stop declaring its love for me. (Here is the transcript of the love-bombing.) / The New York Times

An interview with Will Shortz about his life in crosswords. / The New Yorker

At the end of an interview, Liam Neeson demonstrates how to throw a fake punch. / YouTube