The gourd’s resistance army
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the mercenary Wagner Group, is believed dead after a private jet crashes near Moscow. The cause of the crash remains unclear. / Reuters
ICYMI: Joshua Yaffa's long look inside the Wagner Group's uprising. / The New Yorker
See also: In Russia, nobody expects to be told the truth. / The Economist
A Russian court extends the detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershokovich into November. / The Associated Press
Takeaways from the first Republican debate. "Ramaswamy wanted the ball, DeSantis didn't." / Wake Up to Politics
Three researchers face paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend themselves from a disgraced Harvard professor. / Vox
Cheating accusations roil Little League parents in DC. / The Washington Post
Related/unrelated: "Competence is when you're good at life's games; lucidity is knowing which game you're playing." / Vanguard Anthology
A pilot artificial intelligence program in California struggles to identify wildfire smoke. / The New York Times
Contemporary painters use Leonardo da Vinci's "sfumato" style and other techniques to create a modern haze. / Artsy
Research finds people who talk to a variety of people each day feel happier than people who talk only to colleagues and friends. / Goats and Soda
Recommendations from a travel agent: "Travel with the expectation of irritation for the foreseeable future." / Slate
Data on what time different Americans eat dinner. Also, a poem about the romance of swimming. / Flowingdata, Poetry Magazine
The Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, now twenty years old, returns today to stores. / Forbes
And now a brief chat with a new Sustaining Member, Annelise F.!
Hi, Annelise! You found us through the Tournament of Books, right? (Camp ToB, our summer pop-up, is happening as we speak.) I started following the Tournament of Books in 2015 and have become more invested, and closer to 18 novels finished since then.
Wow! Nice. I seem to remember stumbling on the site while looking for a replacement for the much-missed "Hatchet Job of the Year" book review prize. As a translator from Chinese, I use ToB to keep in tune with contemporary styles of English language fiction.
That's really interesting. Any particular reason you decided to support today? This has been part of my life for a decade now. I wanted to do something more than my usual obsessive recommending to friends.
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Your headlines are sourced and composed by Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Monday through Saturday. View this edition and the latest headlines at TMN.