Who’s rat girl
The world's deadliest humanitarian crisis in 2022 was not in Afghanistan or Ukraine, but the Central African Republic. / Undark
Ten countries have now been dragged into the "ever-expanding" Middle East war. / The Economist
An investigation finds the United Arab Emirates funding more than 100 assassinations in Yemen, with training provided by American mercenaries. / BBC News
See also: A reporter's "obsessive search" to unearth the history of how Congress secretly funded the atomic bomb. / The New York Times [+]
Notes from a simulated coup following the United States' upcoming presidential election. "I think the biggest threat is denial." / Slate
Jelani Cobb: The pertinent issue now is not what caused the Civil War but what we should have learned from it. / The New Yorker
"Nones," or the spiritually unaffiliated, are currently the largest religious group in the United States. / Pew Research Center
Your weekly white paper: A survey of students using chatbots finds 3% halted their suicidal ideation. / Nature
Nearly 90 percent of top news outlets now block AI data collection. / WIRED
Descriptions of different sounds to be heard in space (or sounds based on those sounds)—e.g., "the groans of a ghost in a bottomless well." / Nautilus
Related: The best neighborhoods for starting a life in the galaxy. / Quanta Magazine
Some early drawings from engineers who dreamed of tunnels connecting England and France. / Public Domain Review
A French photographer trains rats to take selfies. / Augustin Lignier
Correction: Yesterday's link to a story in The Guardian lacked the word "measles." Our bad!
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Your headlines are sourced and composed by Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Monday through Saturday.