The House Judiciary Committee launches a sweeping investigation into whether Trump and his team have engaged in obstruction of justice, corruption, and abuse of power.

FYI: The next several months will be a doozy.

McConnell says there are enough disapproving votes in the Senate to block Trump’s national emergency declaration.

France’s Macron publishes an op-ed in a range of newspapers calling for a European Renaissance.

Faced with major crises in the world, citizens so often ask, “Where is Europe? What is Europe doing?” To them it has become a soulless market.

Worth noting: France's "yellow vest" protests remain largely rural and white. Does that explain why the government's been more responsive?

A good podcast profile of Sadie Alexander, the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. in economics.

Economists don't know why the amount of $100 bills in circulation is surging.

For society as a whole to have a lot of optimists taking risks—that’s what makes for economic progress, so I call that the engine of capitalism, really, that sort of optimism. Nobel Prize-winner Daniel Kahneman, psychologist and economist, on how random variability affects our decision-making.

A map to remind you that North America is a continent.

Data is not the new oil—because the biggest data repositories (Facebook, Google) don’t want it to be.

The data suggest that embracing misery can make you happier, while demanding happiness may lead to misery.

Driverless cars are found to be less accurate at detecting pedestrians with darker skin tones.

The world’s top-ranked bridge player is suspended for doping with synthetic testosterone and a female fertility drug.

The fashion industry churned out 100 billion pieces of clothing in 2015. Earth currently supports about 7 billion people.

A new study shows that for successful artists, making friends is more important than producing novel art.

John Steinbeck charmingly asks Marilyn Monroe for her autograph.

Watch or read: Patricia Lockwood’s “The Communal Mind,” about internet humor, Michael Jordan’s tears, and the collapse of context.

Unrelated: Pictures of older people in parks.

Interview with a fake sex doctor who conned the media into publicizing his “research” about butt-fisting and beastiality.