Author: Michelle Korhonen
Iran and the United States have been in a shadow war with each other for years. That the conflict has never spilled into all-out war is only because both countries have kept to certain unwritten red lines and rules of engagement. One such rule, rarely broken in recent years, is: Thou Shall Not Kill an American Soldier. Even in January 2020, when a U.S. strike killed Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most important military figure, the Iranian response didn’t lead to a single U.S. fatality. The tit for tat that had led to the assassination had included the killing of a U.S.…
The stories are hauntingly similar: A teenager, their whole life ahead of them, buys a pill from someone on Snapchat. They think it’s OxyContin or Percocet, but it actually contains a lethal amount of fentanyl. They take it; they die. Their bereaved parents are left grasping for an explanation.A 2021 NBC News investigation found more than a dozen such cases across the country. And now, parents of teens and young adults who died or were injured after purchasing drugs laced with fentanyl are turning to the courts, suing Snap over features that they believe made the deals possible—and allowed them…
Neuralink has conducted its first surgical test of a brain implant, Elon Musk says. An example of the device, whose size has been compared to a coin and which has “threads” that connect to the brain, is seen here in a photo from the company’s brochure. Neuralink/Screenshot by NPR hide caption toggle caption Neuralink/Screenshot by NPR Neuralink has conducted its first surgical test of a brain implant, Elon Musk says. An example of the device, whose size has been compared to a coin and which has “threads” that connect to the brain, is seen here in a photo from the…
A new collection of images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope was recently released, showing incredibly detailed views of spiral galaxies in near- and mid-infrared light. Comparing these new images with previous views seen by NASA’s other space telescope, Hubble, in visible and ultraviolet light, reveals new galactic structures and elements. The infrared images from JWST highlight the glowing lanes and clouds of dust lying within the spiral arms of each galaxy. These JWST images are part of a long-standing project called the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) program. Gathered below are a dozen of these…
As a girl of 10, Estelle Laughlin and her family were forced into the Warsaw Ghetto, then sent to a concentration camp. She lived through the Nazi genocide. This new war has shaken her to her core.(Image credit: Jamie Kelter Davis for NPR)
Earlier this month, I watched what will probably be the strangest movie I see all year. Sasquatch Sunset is an absurdist film chronicling the lives of four Bigfoots (Bigfeet?). The cast, which includes Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg, donned heavy prosthetics, layers of makeup, and furry costumes to play the titular mythical creatures. The script is devoid of dialogue. Instead, the group grunts, moans, and shrieks from scene to scene while carrying on with much feral behavior: They feast on berries; they fight; they wander the woods. In one very long, very goofy sequence, they urinate and defecate on the…
To shop for an electric car right now is to encounter an embarrassment of riches. In the United States, almost every major automaker has its own EV model, if not several. You can get a Chevy Bolt or Nissan Leaf for less than $30,000, or a Porsche Taycan Turbo S for nearly $200,000. You can get an electric pickup truck from Ford, Tesla, or Rivian; a midsize five-seater from Hyundai or Kia or Volkswagen; or even something unusual like the new Cybertruck. There’s a lot, and it’s all pretty exciting.But you know what EV you can’t easily buy in the…
Sign up for The Trump Trials by George T. Conway III, a newsletter that chronicles the former president’s legal troubles.Eighty-three million, three hundred thousand dollars. When a New York jury awarded that amount to E. Jean Carroll on Friday in her defamation action against former President Donald Trump, I was awestruck.Now, as a lawyer, I had thought a fair verdict could range anywhere from $75 to $100 million—or even more. Carroll had already obtained a $5 million verdict in a trial just last year, an amount comprising roughly $2 million for his having sexually abused Carroll in 1996, and roughly…
For a few hours last Tuesday, the entire news business seemed to be collapsing all at once. Journalists at Time magazine and National Geographic announced that they had been laid off. Unionized employees at magazines owned by Condé Nast staged a one-day strike to protest imminent cuts. By far the grimmest news was from the Los Angeles Times, the biggest newspaper west of the Washington, D.C., area. After weeks of rumors, the paper announced that it was cutting 115 people, more than 20 percent of its newsroom.The Times was once a pillar of the American media establishment, celebrated in David…
The first time Donald Trump faced the writer E. Jean Carroll in court, in the spring of 2023, he declined to appear at the trial. He lost: The jury, finding him liable both for assaulting her in a department-store dressing room in the 1990s and for defaming her in the aftermath, awarded her $5 million in damages. This month, another defamation suit went to trial—a case based on claims Trump had made about Carroll during his presidency in 2019. This time, he attended the proceedings. Or, more accurately, he attempted to star in them, treating the courtroom as a set…