The Thursday, August 13, 2026 Edition
Three States Set Same-Day Executions, Lakers Fetch $12.5B, and Rome's Unlucky 17
4 min read
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The drop in deer-vehicle collisions on Washington's Olympic Peninsula when pumas were present, compared with areas without the big cats. The predators keep deer away from roads — an accidental traffic-safety program run entirely by mountain lions.
Source: Smithsonian
Tonight: The Perseid meteor shower hits its annual mid-August peak, offering some of the year's best skywatching over the next few nights.
Coming days: Watch for fallout from the record $12.5 billion Lakers sale, including questions about the franchise's direction and whether talk of a potential Las Vegas NBA expansion team gains momentum.
Ongoing: BTS' V continues treatment for hearing loss in his right ear as the group's world tour goes on; watch for updates on his condition and schedule.
Coming months: Divers who recovered a sealed 162-year-old bottle of Guinness hope to sequence its yeast's DNA to recreate what the stout tasted like in the 19th century.
- 1521Tenochtitlán falls to Hernán Cortés, ending the Aztec Empire
- 1899Film director Alfred Hitchcock is born in London
- 1913Harry Brearley produces the first stainless steel in Sheffield, England
- 1961East Germany seals the Berlin border and begins building the Berlin Wall
Sun, sea and bombs in Odesa
How beach life persists in Odesa, where sunbathers on Ukraine's Black Sea coast share their summer with air strikes. *(Read, paywall)*
Financial Times$ Subscription
In a Heat Wave, Schizophrenia Is So Much Deadlier Than Any Other Medical Condition
Why extreme heat is far deadlier for people with schizophrenia than for those with any other medical condition.
Wired
Zap Rocks. Add Water. Get Clean Hydrogen
How stimulating underground rocks with water could unlock a vast new source of clean geologic hydrogen.
IEEE Spectrum · Ariel Bleicher
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