Category: generally interesting

As part of my new year’s media diet resolution, I’m trying to read a broader range of news than the steady stream of  outrage-bait and Oval Office reality show recaps served up by trending news algorithms and the viral hive mind. To help keep me on track, I’m trying to find five interesting stories a day that aren’t on any most-shared list.

1. “Hospitals Wrestle With Shortage of IV Bags, Linked to Hurricane” (Wall Street Journal) – The largest supplier of IV bags in America are two factories in Puerto Rico which still only have “intermittent” power after Hurricane Maria, leaving hospitals to scramble to deliver what had been routine care to patients.
2. “Somaliland passes first law against rape” (BBC) –
   Since declaring itself an independent (though unrecognized) country in 1991, Somaliland had no criminal statute outlawing rape, while Somalia still has no law on the books.
3. “The ongoing saga of the mysterious Madame Giselle” (Washington Post) – If you haven’t been following Manuel Roig-Franzia’s reporting on a career grifter who duped her Chevy Chase neighbors with promises of close ties to Ivanka Trump and Jeff Sessions, now’s your chance to jump in. She’s now in Bogota, Colombia, facing charges of defrauding a bank of millions.
4. “Deep Learning Sharpens Views of Cells and Genes” (Scientific American) – Computer scientists and medical researchers are learning to work together and the results are stunning. “The most interesting phrase in science isn’t ‘Eureka!’, but ‘That’s weird—what’s going on?’”
5. “Air Force nixes evaluations for junior airmen” (Air Force Times) – No more performance evaluations for the Air Force’s lowest ranks, which is about a fifth of its 250,000 or so enlisted personnel. “Essentially, they go in a file and we don’t ever use them again… so the question becomes, why write them?”

 

As part of my New Year’s media diet resolution, I’m trying to seek out a broader selection of news than the mono-crop that trending news algorithms tend to serve up. To that end, I’m going to try to find five stories every day that are generally interesting and not on any viral lists.

1. “A drug bust was marred by a suicide bombing in Kabul. Was it ISIS, or the ‘mafia’?” (Washington Post) – Max Bearak finds that sometimes a terrorist attack isn’t what it seems.
2. “Russia’s dysfunctional funeral business gets a makeover” (The Economist) – Strapped for cash amidst an energy slump, Putin is looking to bring one of Russia’s underground economies into the light: undertaking.
3. “Skyrocketing Bitcoin Fees Hit Carders in Wallet” (Krebs on Security) – Online criminals are abandoning bitcoin because of high transaction fees. “Sometimes we have to pay as much as 5$ from every 1$ you deposited,” complains one credit card scammer.
4. “Iran Bans English in Primary Schools to Block ‘Cultural Invasion’” (Reuters) – Ayatollah Khamenei said, “Western thinkers have time and again said that instead of colonialist expansionism … the best and the least costly way would have been inculcation of thought and culture to the younger generation of countries.”
5. “This short story dispenser helps you pass the time with literature” (The Verge) – A French publisher is installing machines in places like airports that print out short stories (measured as 1-, 2-, or 5-minute reads) to give people something to do other than stare into their phones.