ESA / Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Zamani, M. G. Guarcello
Day 14 of the 2024 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: a sky full of stars. The open cluster Westerlund 1 is located roughly 12,000 light-years away, residing behind a huge interstellar cloud of gas and dust.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
In 2022, my colleague Megan Garber reflected on the transactional side of attention. “Far too often, I find myself mindlessly twitch-clicking on an enticing headline, and then reading, and then regretting,” she wrote. “I pay my attention; I instantly wish for a refund.
Writing about the loss of public figures is something I rarely do, because my muddled thoughts typically take more time to process than the news cycle allows. But the death of Nikki Giovanni on Monday, at 81, felt different. That night, after putting my son to bed, I searched for her name in my Gmail account, looking for correspondence involving an essay I had once assigned to her.
Earlier this month, the chief executive officer of UnitedHealthcare was assassinated during morning rush hour on a busy block in Midtown Manhattan; the alleged killer’s confession went viral, in particular the line “the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy.”
The murder led to a mass airing of grievances with American insurers and, among those who felt that the industry had it coming, a haunting moment of collective glee.
The streaming giant is scaling back on its generous parental leave policy…and employee swag.
Most modern interpretations are a sad imitation of what was once a kitschy holiday tradition.
The NFL’s only problem is that it needs free-flowing dollars to keep pace with itself.
Carlos Watson was a “con artist” running a “criminal organization,” the government says.
Hugh Son joins to explain the complicated mess left in the wake of a fintech failure, and how users were left holding the bag.
A witness recognized the alleged killer at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s.
The president-elect’s advisers haven’t yet begun meeting with federal agencies, despite signing an agreement late last month allowing them to do so.
Brian Thompson was fatally shot outside a Midtown hotel.
The agency denied Triton Distribution’s application to sell flavored e-liquids.
Trump’s picks to lead the NIH and FDA were critics of health officials and their pandemic policies.
The Waves also discusses the Riverside Church controversy and the case of Sarah Milov.
What we say matters, especially depending on whom we say it to.
The Waves also discusses the case against Jeffrey Epstein and Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble.
Five weeks after the election, the president took his sharpest swing at Trump’s policy plans.
A pair of POLITICO|Morning Consult polls, one conducted in the final days of the election and the other conducted after Trump won, show how public opinion has changed.
The final paid messages: Economy, culture wars and character.
Harris has ratcheted up her warnings about the dangers of a second Trump term in recent weeks.
President-elect Trump, himself found liable in court for sexual abuse, has picked a striking number of suspected sexual predators for key positions in his incoming administration. Trump’s early pick of former Florida Congressmember Matt Gaetz for attorney general was shot down amid a firestorm over sexual misconduct allegations. Now Trump is pushing hard to keep the rest of his picks on track, including Fox host Pete Hegseth for defense secretary and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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Recent mysterious sightings in our night sky cannot be written off as hallucinations, mass delusions, or hoaxes. Something is indeed happening.
This is Atlantic Intelligence, a newsletter in which our writers help you wrap your mind around artificial intelligence and a new machine age. Sign up here.
Earlier this week, OpenAI launched the full version of its video-generating model, Sora. Hype has been building around this release since the startup teased the program nearly 10 months ago, but the final product doesn’t quite meet expectations.
“No one believed them until someone else said it.” Readers encounter this sentiment early in The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead’s award-winning 2019 novel, not long after the unearthing of a bloody bit of history. A secret graveyard has been discovered on the grounds of a decaying former reform school—the Nickel of the book’s title—that had been earmarked for transformation into a corporate office park.
If you’re reading this and thinking, “I wish I were rich enough to own a stegosaurus,” then there’s an online platform for you.
This year is set to break the record for the hottest year ever recorded. It was a banner year for climate devastation: Southern Africa and South America suffered under severe droughts; dangerous heat bore down on large parts of Asia, Europe, and Central America; and an alarming number of wildfires consumed more than 1 million hectares in Brazil. Hurricanes, intensified by abnormally hot seawater, pummeled the Caribbean and the American Southeast, and floods deluged parts of Africa and Europe.
