|
Listen To This Story
 |
PICKS are stories from many sources, selected by our editors or recommended by our readers because they are important, surprising, troubling, enlightening, inspiring, or amusing. They appear on our site and in our daily newsletter. Please send suggested articles, videos, podcasts, etc. to picks@whowhatwhy.org.
Twitter ‘No Longer Exists’ as a Company, Merges Into Musk’s X Corp (Maria)
The authors write, “Last month, Twitter CEO Elon Musk told employees that they’d be eligible to receive stocks in X Corporation — the new name for the holding company that he initially set up to purchase Twitter — telling them that soon Twitter could be worth $250 billion. More recently, an April court filing shows that Twitter, Inc. has officially merged with X Corp, achieving Musk’s goal of wiping out Twitter Inc. as a company. The court filing confirmed that Twitter, Inc. ‘no longer exists.’ ‘X,’ Musk cryptically tweeted after the news of the merger broke.”
Next Abortion Battles May Be Among States With Clashing Laws (Reader Steve)
The author writes, “Abortion is banned in Idaho at all stages of pregnancy, but the governor … signed another law making it illegal to provide help within the state’s boundaries to minors seeking an abortion without parental consent. The new law is obviously aimed at abortions obtained in other states, but it’s written to criminalize in-state behavior leading to the out-of-state procedure — a clear nod to the uncertainty surrounding efforts by lawmakers in at least half a dozen states to extend their influence outside their borders when it comes to abortion law.”
The Pendleton 2 Saved a Man’s Life. A Judge Sentenced Them to 200 Years for It. (Michaela)
From The Real News Network: [Poet] Too Black and Victoria Law join Rattling the Bars to discuss the campaign to free the Pendleton 2.”
From 2022: How Police Compare in Different Democracies (Sean)
From The Council on Foreign Relations: “Killings by U.S. officers have sparked widespread calls for police reform and an end to systemic racism. Here’s how U.S. policing compares with other countries’ approaches.”
Landlords Who Bought Thousands of Apartments are Facing a Reckoning (Russ)
The author writes: “Apartment buildings were the hottest investment in real estate as the pandemic unfolded. Now owners are defaulting.”
The Great Slave Strike That Helped End Slavery (Al)
From Jacobin: “On Presidents’ Day, we rightly celebrate Abraham Lincoln for helping end slavery. But we shouldn’t forget the unstoppable force that also brought down the Slave Power: the several million slaves who left the plantation, many of whom joined the Union Army.”
‘Bees Are Sentient’: Inside the Stunning Brains of Nature’s Hardest Workers (Laura)
The author writes, “Bees can demonstrate sophisticated emotions resembling optimism, frustration, playfulness and fear, traits more commonly associated with mammals … Commercially managed bees are considered livestock by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and are treated as a workhorse for food production, just as cattle in feedlots serve the beef industry. This mechanized approach to pollination makes no allowances for the kinds of revelations about bees’ emotional lives that scientists … have recently discovered.”
Can AI Help Design a More Appealing Car? (Michaela)
From Yale Insights: “Designing a new car is expensive and time-consuming — and there’s always a risk that a novel design won’t connect with consumers. In a new study, Yale [School of Management’s] Alex Burnap shows how machine learning can identify promising models and help designers generate new designs to iterate on their ideas more quickly.”
