New NBER paper finds that US crash deaths rise by ~15% on dates of major album releases.
Distraction from smartphones is a likely culprit.
www.nber.org/papers/w34866
More than a dozen children—most of whom were born to surrogate mothers—were found in an L.A. mansion. Ava Kofman reports on the mysterious couple behind this story. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/VOPv86
Particularly when CBP agents have already been caught wearing Meta glasses to immigration raids even without facial recogntion www.404media.co/a-cbp-agent-...
"For years, a cottage industry of political observers has contorted itself to obscure and occlude the obvious. That regardless of what others see in him, Trump’s entire political career...cannot be understood outside the context of his bitter, deep-seated racism." (gift link)
CIA STORIES - SPOTLIGHTING THE WORLD FACT-BOOK AS WE BID A FOND FAREWELL February 4, 2026
⚠️ The CIA World Factbook has been shut down.
(link: www.cia.gov/stories/stor...)
DOCTOR: I told him he needed to get out to a show, that was how he would cure his depression.
CHOTINER: So you learned this technique in school?
DR: No, not— listen it was good advice. Pagliacci was in town.
C: Right. Is it standard to give advice before learning a patient’s name?
DR: Now look
Jew in Amsterdam here. Please use Anne Frank as a comparison point to explain how state persecution of scapegoats impacts children, that is the point of her example, thanks
Low oil prices, a global glut of crude, a strong ruble, and sanctions are all weighing on Russia’s oil and gas revenues. Here’s what that means for the Kremlin’s budget.
meduza.io/en/feature/2...
NYT says ICE shot him in the back:
An “agent aims his own firearm at Mr. Pretti’s back and appears to fire one shot at close range… A third agent unholsters a weapon. Both agents appear to fire additional shots into Mr. Pretti as he lies motionless… At least 10 shots appear to have been fired…”
🎁🔗
Those figures are from early 2025, when there was some kind of easter anomaly (if I recall correctly) that skewed the year-on-year numbers. I’d be curious to see up-to-date figures
Heb je over dit onderwerp geschreven?
It's hard to even explain what a disaster this is for the US economy in the short-term — as well as US innovation and industry in decades to come. Immigrants and foreign students at our universities are—as always have been—the wellspring of American invention and innovation.
Seven MPs of Geert Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV) quit the party and start their own parliamentary party group in the Dutch House of Representatives. They refer to the fact that Wilders is the only party member of the PVV and the lack of results. www.dutchnews.nl/2026/01/dutc...
Power demand in China hit a new peak in 2025 but all of the growth was more than met by renewables, so coal-fired power generation actually fell. www.reuters.com/sustainabili... 2/2
2025 was an exceptional year for the Earth's climate
⬆️ Warmest ocean heat content
⬆️ Tied as second warmest surface temps
⬆️ Second warmest troposphere
⬆️ Record high sea level and GHGs
⬇️ Record low winter Arctic ice
New State of the Climate over at Carbon Brief: www.carbonbrief.org/...
In crisisgebieden zijn zonnepanelen onmisbaar. In Oekraïne, Gaza, Myanmar en Jamaica gaat het de mensen niet om groen, maar om overleven. Ook Nederland wordt weerbaarder met meer hernieuwbare energie. Mijn artikel voor @decorrespondent.nl
Growth in coal-fired power generation in China and India by year, %, 1972-2025. Source: Analysis by Lauri Myllyvirta for Carbon Brief.
NEW – Analysis: Coal power drops in China and India for first time in 52 years after clean-energy records | @laurimyllyvirta.bsky.social
Read here: buff.ly/WqnAVhP
Video message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KckG...
www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...
The dust hasn’t settled on Trump’s attack on Venezuela. Now he is contemplating new strikes on Iran. The New Yorker is asking the right question: “Is Donald Trump creating the conditions for another world war?”
podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/t...
In case you are unaware that digital images are also being manipulated to depict women and children as victims of physical violence. It's not just about bikinis.
If you’ve ever used Twitter, it takes about 10 seconds to leave a one-star review in the App Store. Oddly satisfying.
In Iran, “it has become essentially impossible for the majority of the population to make ends meet,” Fatemeh Shams, an associate professor of Persian literature at the University of Pennsylvania, tells Isaac Chotiner. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/KbpEdX
gonna have to break out the old 'Hungarian policeman' jokes for these fuckers.
so much for Donroe
The 2017 煤改气 story returns with a new wrinkle... As Beijing skies continue to get bluer, costs are felt outside the capital, resurfacing environmental justice and policy questions
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Sorry, but triumphant claims about autonomous vehicle safety are wildly exaggerated.
It's an open question whether today’s self-driving cars are any safer than those driven by humans.
And if reducing crashes is the goal, that isn’t even the right question.
My deep dive, in Bloomberg 🧵
American netizens are devising ingenious puns to avoid the country's pervasive online censorship.
NEW RECORD: Africa imports 2GW of solar panels for the first time in a month.
And this is happening EVERYWHERE in Africa...
Although Machado ultimately said she was dedicating the award to Trump, her acceptance of the prize was an “ultimate sin,” said one of the people. “If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” this person said.
WH sources say Venezuela's opposition leader committed the "ultimate sin": She accepted the Nobel Peace prize.
“If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” one said.
www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
