Three-day (or longer) weekend! Kick it off with our morning reads:
• 5 things mosquito experts do every summer to avoid getting bitten: Looking for pest prevention strategies that work? Researchers share how they prevent mosquito bites and keep the bugs at bay on their properties. Practical seasonal advice from the people who study the bugs for a living. File for May through September. (Washington Post)
• The US is better off than it was in 1976. So why does it feel worse?America’s 250th birthday feels bleak. The numbers tell a different story. A bicentennial-to-now ledger that complicates the declinist mood. More fuel for the great why-are-we-so-grumpy debate. (Vox) see also Is America celebrating the wrong anniversary? John Adams thought so. The Founding Father anticipated “Pomp and Parade” to mark America’s birthday. But Adams didn’t think it would happen July 4, he was sure July 2 was the date that mattered. A fun bit of founding-era pedantry, perfectly timed. (Washington Post)
• The world added nearly a million new millionaires in 2025 — but most people got poorer: Global personal wealth rose 10.8% last year, the fastest pace in years, yet median wealth fell in most markets. (Quartz)
• What are the rules on insider betting, really? It’s more interesting than you might think. As betting markets expand, the line between edge and cheating gets blurry. (Financial Times) see also Will Betting on Wildfires Lead to Arson?: Prediction markets meet moral hazard in the American West. A genuinely unsettling question about what happens when you can profit from catastrophe. (High Country News)
• World Cup visitors are losing their minds over these American foods From ranch dressing that converts Swedish fans on the spot to Carolina BBQ ribs that a Scotsman says ruined all other meat forever. Foreign fans discover the strange delights of the U.S. concession stand. A fun sidebar to the tournament’s culture-clash coverage. (Quartz)
• You don’t have to swallow frogs: Klein and Coates show that if you don’t know what your core beliefs are, you’re going to get played. A contrarian riff on the productivity-guru gospel of doing the worst task first. Sometimes the frog can wait. (Degenerate Art)
• Influencers: Turns Out, They’re Not So Influential at the Ballot Box: The failed campaigns of Jack Schlossberg and Spencer Pratt suggest it takes more than social media—and name recognition—to win an election. (Vanity Fair) see also We Need a Way to Prove Personhood Online: As bots flood everything, the case for verifiable humanity gets more urgent — and more fraught. A thoughtful take on a genuinely hard problem. The growing number of AI agents roaming the internet will eventually force us to verify what the old web mostly presumed: that there is a morally and legally accountable person somewhere in the chain. (NOEMA)
• Trump’s focus on his construction projects has increased, Post analysis finds: The president mentioned his planned White House ballroom, golf course changes and other projects on more than 75 percent of the days in June. The Post counts the days he brought up his building projects. A small, telling measure of presidential attention. (Washington Post)
• The Wheels Are Coming Off Putin’s War: The case that Russia’s war machine is finally sputtering, Crimea included. Read it against the Telegraph’s Kyiv piece for the optimistic read on the front. (The Bulwark)
• A giant telescope goes on a decade-long search for dark matter: The Vera C. Rubin Observatory hopes to illuminate with a decade-long survey of the universe that began Monday night. By taking a comprehensive time-lapse of the sky over the Southern Hemisphere, the telescope will create an open dataset of unprecedented scale and detail for astronomers — and for the public — to zoom in on for further investigation. Inside the instrument built to chase the universe’s missing mass. A patient, well-illustrated look at long-horizon science. (Washington Post)
Video of the day: Your Brain is Making Reality Up | NOVA
Be sure to check out our Master’s in Business this weekend with McKeel Hagerty, CEO/Chairman of Hagerty Specialty Insurance. He transformed a family specialty-insurance agency into an enthusiast-driven platform focused on collectible cars, events, valuation data, and auctions. HGTY is now a public company that insures everything from classic cars to boats, trucks, tractors, and military vehicles for over 2.8M collectors.
See which 7 cities could soon see record-hot days and nights
Source: Washington Post
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