A list of good reads
- Venkata Krishna B in the Indian Express offers a scathing takedown of the Indo-Pak rivalry that undid the Asia Cup—and now threatens the prep for the World Cup.
- Wall Street Journal (splainer gift link) looks at Elon Musk’s mysterious $1 billion loan from SpaceX—taken the same month he acquired Twitter.
- How can you resist a New Yorker essay on Taylor Swift’s music that includes the line: “The first time I heard about Taylor Swift, I was in a Los Angeles County jail, waiting to be sent to prison for murder.”
- Wired profiles OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his grand plan to “change everything.”
- Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser in New York Times (splainer gift link) explain why the data from James Webb telescope upends what we know about the Big Bang.
- Rachel Tashjian in the Washington Post (splainer gift link) has a thought provoking piece on why we are all confused about what ageing looks like—in the age of plastic surgery.
- Also in the Washington Post: Britt Peterson makes an excellent case against decluttering.
- Vir Sanghvi in The Print wades into the India/Bharat controversy—pointing out that the BJP once celebrated the use of ‘India’ over ‘Bharat’.
- Scroll takes a fascinating look at the history of biscuits in India—which were once forbidden to Hindus.
- Associated Press reports on the environmental hazard posed by tennis balls.