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For roughly two decades, a battered 1970s Coca-Cola machine sat on the sidewalk outside Broadway Locksmith on East John Street in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, and nobody seemed to own it. Drinks cost 55 cents back in 2002, climbed to 75 cents by 2014, and reached a buck right when Seattle rolled out its sweet…

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On January 9, 1643, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli pointed his telescope at Venus and noticed a faint glow on the planet’s unlit side. Riccioli figured it was an artifact of his glass — the same trick that makes a prism throw rainbows. Almost four centuries later, astronomers are still arguing about what …

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Karen Aitchison, a senior who has shopped the Diamond Heights Boulevard Safeway for 30 years, lives three flights up. When her grocery store stopped stocking paper bags with handles last month, she did what any sensible person would do — she hoarded the old ones and started reinforcing them with strapping tape. Her alternatives…

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When Carlo Rovelli’s bicycle chain comes off, he calls a bike-shop mechanic, never a particle physicist — even though particle physics technically governs every bolt on the thing. The Italian quantum-gravity theorist uses that fact to swat away one of the loudest arguments in philosophy of mind, in a long essay for Noema titl…

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Daily active users across Meta’s properties slipped from 3.58 billion to 3.56 billion last quarter, the first decline the company has ever reported. Julia Angwin, writing in a New York Times opinion piece, says Meta has caught the same stink that AOL did in 2003 and that Y…

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The Data Drop releases one interactive visual essay every week, and the latest is a collection of startup sounds from 1977 to the present, covering everything from the Apple II to the Vision Pro. Along with the actual startup sound, or lack thereof, in the case of early tech like the 2600, the drop includes the story behind the sound. It’s quite a trip …

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Diplomacy in 2026 increasingly resembles two raccoons fighting inside a dumpster while insisting they are “de-escalating,” and the latest US-Iran ceasefire appears to follow Israel’s favorite template: keep firing, but call it a “ceasefire.”

A U.S. official confirmed the attack, saying the U.S. had conducted strikes on targets in the strait. It appeared to happen as the U.S. attempted to enforce the blockade.

The Iranian navy targeted three U.S. destroyers, according to Iranian state media. The country’s military said the U.S. had targeted an oil tanker and another ship entering the vital trade channel.

“The U.S. official said the exchange did not constitute a resumption of the war, but the Iranian military described the U.S. strikes as a ceasefire violation and threatened retaliation. The extent of the strikes and resulting damage are unclear at this time,” Axios reported.

RawStory

Officials on both sides stressed the exchange of missiles did not technically mean the war was back on, suggesting modern warfare is now indicated by something other than martial force.

Yellowstone’s wildlife brochure probably mentions the geysers first, but this week a mother grizzly reminded two hikers that the park’s unofficial mascot still has claws, teeth, and very strong opinions about strangers approaching her cubs.

The incident occurred on the Mystic Falls Trail, where officials believe a female grizzly with two or three cubs-of-the-year was involved in the attack. Cubs-of-the-year are bear cubs in their first year of life.

Emergency responders, including law enforcement and EMS crews, provided aid at the scene before the hikers were airlifted to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center. The hikers were two brothers – a 15-year-old boy and a 28-year-old man. The extent of their injuries has not been released.

As a precaution, several backcountry areas northwest of Old Faithful are temporarily closed.

East Idaho News

The hiker who responded to their cries for help while the riled-up momma bear was still in the area is a true hero.

According to new reporting from Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian, already paranoid-looking FBI Director Kash Patel has reportedly ordered polygraph tests for more than two dozen current and former staffers as leak paranoia and internal panic spread through his office.

MS NOW is reporting that “FBI director Kash Patel has ordered the polygraphing of more than two dozen former and current members of his security detail and other staff and has been described as in panic mode to save his job and find leakers among his team, according to two people briefed on the development.” MS NOW’s Carol Leonnig, who broke this story alongside colleague Ken Dilanian, joins Nicolle on Deadline White House for the latest on this story.

MSNOW

Nothing says “calm, stable leadership” quite like putting your own team on lie detectors.

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This animation by Philippa Rice uses an innovative technique I haven’t seen before: paper cutouts. The video shows the technique used in different ways, and it’s fun to see the possibilities that come from simply cutting paper and animating it. I hope the artist makes more of these soon, because I’m mesmerized.

The clips show a paper doll cartwheeling an…

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Budderscopes is the creative world of artist Kaleb Weber, who makes handmade kaleidoscopes built from glass, mirrors, and found materials. Look through one, and color and shape break apart into endlessly changing patterns — each scope a different mini-universe.

The handmade quality makes them addictive to peer into, because no two…

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Tesla’s latest Cybertruck recall comes with an awkward side effect: it appears to confirm that the company sold only 173 examples of its supposedly more affordable rear-wheel-drive-only model before quietly discontinuing it.

The recall affects all 173 of the $70,000 Cybertrucks sold by Tesla, which come with 18-inch steel wheels. The company notes that it has identified three warranty claims potentially linked to the issue, but it’s “not aware of any collisions, fatalities, or injuries” related to the recall.

The Verge

At this point the recall list and the owners club might be the same spreadsheet.

Twenty years later, the recollections are fonder. In the run-up to the May 8 anniversary, people are reposting clips of the moment. A book about it is out. And Mr. Goma is being celebrated as a folk hero of sorts for anyone who has ever found themselves ill-equipped for a challenge in the workplace.

“It captures this sort of anxiety that we all have about being thrust into a role we’re not prepared for, but trying to perform competently anyway,” said Rafal Zaborowski, a senior lecturer on digital culture at King’s College London.

Mr. Goma’s story began when he applied to the BBC for a job as a data specialist and was called in for an interview. He was waiting in the lobby when Elliott Gotkine, a producer at the British broadcaster’s rolling 24‑hour news channel, approached him.

NYT

The enduring magic of the clip is that everyone watching immediately recognizes the feeling: you’re in the wrong meeting, nobody realizes it yet, and somehow you still have to sound professional.

These snapshots of dinosaur roadside attractions across America make me want to hop in my car and hit the road. A lot of these places weren’t built as art pieces, but as advertising or local landmarks that just stuck around long after their original purpose faded. Part of what makes them interesting is that they’re not polishe…

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A former State Department official says the Trump White House was apparently caught off guard by a CIA assessment concluding that Iran can absorb far more military and economic punishment than administration officials expected, and can still stand up to US aggression.

Citing the Washington Post report, host Anna Cabrera asked, “So, Rick, given this CIA assessment suggesting Iran can withstand a lot more pain and they can hold off if the U.S. has a blockade for more months, in fact, and given other reporting that U.S. military assets were more severely, severely damaged by Iran than the administration has let on, what does that mean for the kind of leverage Iran might have in any negotiation?“

“Well, they do have leverage,” Stengel replied. “I mean, Iran’s calculation from the start was we can withstand more military pain and more economic pain than the U.S. can withstand economic pain — that they’re witnessing that all the time. They’ve had sanctions against them for 20 years and have suffered. I would always count on a people who have an existential threat against them, who have had to live with very little to outlast it.”

“I just also want to bring into your last question, I mean, the intelligence community basically has been pretty accurate about Iran’s capabilities and it doesn’t surprise people … you know, people in international policy,” Stengel added. “You know who it did surprise? It surprised the White House; the White House didn’t think that Iran was that resilient. They didn’t understand why Iran attacked the other gulf countries to kind of try to separate them. So it’s coming as a surprise to President Trump and his close advisors, and that’s not a good sign.”

RawStory

The unsettling part isn’t that Iran believes it can outlast American pressure: that’s been its strategy for decades. The unsettling part is that the White House reportedly seemed surprised to hear it.

Long Lost Personal is an archive devoted to preserving vintage personal ads from decades past. Curated from old newspapers and alternative weeklies, the project collects tiny fragments of human longing, awkwardness, humor, and hope. Take a stroll into the past, where everything was typed out by people searching for connection long before dating apps exi…

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If you ever get stuck on top of a roller coaster, cross your fingers it’s not the Superman ride at Six Flags Magic Mountain. That’s exactly what happened when the coaster stalled at the top — and instead of the usual screaming descent, adrenaline rush, and mild questioning of mortality, riders got a very different k…

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Double Dragon was the first game I really knew back to front, the first I beat, though kid me never got past the elbow smash trick: an overpowered move made unbeatable by alternating sides to keep a pounded enemy down. This 40-year-old arcade classic has a wealth of spinoffs, remakes, reboots and genre media, and a funny thing about it is how everything…

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If you need a break from doom-scrolling, take a few minutes of your day to enjoy some videos featuring my new favorite internet doggo, a cute Tibetan Spaniel named Tilly who goes by the nickname “the friendly loaf.”

Tilly was rescued by her human mom, Anna Marie, in 2019. She answered an ad for a litter of puppies that…

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