Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

26 reasons to watch the Winter Olympics

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here. Vox loves the Olympics. Absolutely loves them. We briefly debated popping up a limited-run Winter Olympics newsletter this week, but then remembered that we are not in fact a sports site and have no […]

Bad Bunny is taking over the US. Does he want Puerto Rico to leave it?

Rapper Bad Bunny will perform Sunday at the Super Bowl halftime show, becoming the first solo male Latin American artist to headline. He’s arriving at the peak of his popularity: The performance comes just a week after receiving the Grammy’s highest honor for his genre-defining album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, which deals with themes of […]

Those cute talking parrots on TikTok? A new investigation reveals the cruel “bird mills” that breed them for profit.

Statistically speaking, a lot of your neighbors probably have a dog or cat. But there’s a decent chance that there are at least a few parrots in your neighborhood, too: About one in 20 US households owns at least one pet bird. There’s the popular parakeet, a small parrot native to Australia and other regions […]

The big case against owning small pets

I grew up in the Maryland suburbs and spent much of my childhood in the woods. I would turn over rocks to find shiny centipedes and watch small schools of fish glide through the creek as box turtles sunbathed on the banks. A squirrel’s frenzied search for a nut would capture my full attention.  I […]

Why a Republican Supreme Court just handed a victory to Democrats

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court handed down a one-sentence order announcing that California’s newly gerrymandered maps, which are expected to give Democrats as many as five more seats in the US House, may go into effect during the 2026 midterms. These maps were enacted to counterbalance a Republican gerrymander in Texas, which could also give […]