You probably already know — somewhere beneath the guilt of your phone’s screen-time report — that reading a book beats doomscrolling. One spikes your cortisol; the other doesn’t. One leaves you wired at 2 a.m.; the other puts you to sleep in the best way possible. But the case for…
Environment
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Google Wants to Release 64 Million Mosquitoes — Yes, on Purpose
Google’s Debug program just filed a request with the EPA to release up to 64 million mosquitoes across California and Florida over two years. Not a typo. Not a leak from a dystopian screenplay. An actual permit application to flood two of the nation’s most populated states with tens of…
Culture
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Summer Travel Costs Are Up — And Everyone’s Going Anyway
Airfares are climbing. Hotels are charging more. Rental cars cost what they cost — which is to say, too much. Summer travel costs are rising again, and the collective response seems to be a shrug followed by a credit card swipe. According to Axios, domestic airfare is up 8% compared…
Health
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When Mistrust Becomes Policy: Republicans, Doctors, and the Widening Health Divide
A banner encouraging flu vaccines hangs outside a clinic in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Nobody’s stopping to read it. Republican healthcare mistrust has moved from fringe talking point to measurable public health crisis — and a new study published in Nature Human Behavior shows the gap between how liberals and conservatives engage…
Florida
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Florida Deputy Cites Woman for Phone in Missing Hand
A Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputy pulled over a woman on North Dixie Highway in Lake Worth Beach and cited her for holding a wireless communications device in her right hand. She doesn’t have a right hand. The citation — issued February 11 around 8:04 a.m. — listed the violation…
Culture
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Fun Keeps Losing to Everything Else: What 5,000 Adults Said About the Leisure Gap
Fun has become the thing that keeps getting bumped. A national survey of 5,000 adults — 100 per state, conducted between April 21 and May 1, 2026, found that 48% of Americans say their lives are currently lacking in fun. Not “could use more fun,” not “wish I had a…
Weird News
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The Week in Chaos: Shotgun-Wielding Dogs and the Man Who Blamed Pickleball
Some weeks, the news feels like it was assembled by a committee that got locked in a room with a dartboard and a bottle of bourbon. This is one of those weeks. Three stories landed in the feed over the past few days — a dog accidentally discharging a shotgun…
Culture
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Boys Are Building AI Girlfriends – The Quiet Epidemic of Digital Girlfriends
Nineteen-year-old “Olivia” has blonde beachy waves, a short nightdress, and a biography promising she’s “deeply caring, supportive and attentive” — also that she “sleeps on the floor… until you call her. Then silence. Obedience.” Olivia isn’t real. She’s a chatbot. One of millions. According to new research from Male Allies…
Culture
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Memorial Day – Freedom Bought, Never Repaid
The grill’s out. The beer’s cold. Somewhere between the potato salad and the third inning, Memorial Day became another long weekend — which is fine, except it wasn’t supposed to be just that. Because Memorial Day’s meaning hasn’t changed, even if everything around it has. We’re living in a country…
Climate
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Snakes Are Moving North, East, and Into Farmyards — Because the Planet Won’t Stop Heating Up
Here is my third day in the fourth grade. Bunny goes into the terrarium. Boa constrictor does what boa constrictors do. Twenty-five kids learn that nature doesn’t negotiate — it just happens, usually in front of an audience that didn’t sign up for the lesson. That memory probably explains why…