Modi Draws Shade, Swallowed By A Whale, The Asteroid Is Coming … and More

Pine Island Glacier, one of the fastest-shrinking glaciers in Antarctica, hastened its slide into the sea between 2017 and 2020, when one-fifth of its associated ice shelf broke off as massive icebergs, a new study reveals. The finding does hint that the Pine Island ice shelf may collapse more rapidly than previously projected — over the course of decades, rather than centuries. This could hasten the whole glacier's collapse, in turn. The exact timing of that breakdown remains uncertain. "The changes are rapid and concerning, but not immediately catastrophic. Nothing's going to happen overnight."

NASA created its Planetary Defense Coordination Office in early 2016, with a mission to provide "timely and accurate information to the government, the media, and the public on close approaches to Earth by potentially hazardous objects (PHOs) and any potential for impact." Though sensationalist media stories about incoming asteroids are many, NASA hasn't ever sounded the alarm about a dangerous asteroid bound to impact Earth, or a very worrisome approach. "We have never actually issued a warning".

There’s a moment near the end of Infinite (it’s in the trailer so not really a spoiler) where Mark Wahlberg drives a motorcycle off a cliff, lands on a airplane mid-flight, and stops his momentum with a samurai sword. After it happened I said to myself “Well, I haven’t seen that before,” which is certainly the reaction the film wanted. But in Paramount+’s Infinite, moments like that are few and far between, which makes a film filled with potential nothing more than a fleeting piece of entertainment.

Previously an industry stewarded by wealthy families, today about half of America’s daily newspapers are controlled by private equity, hedge funds and other investment groups, according to FT calculations, after endless rounds of consolidation in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. About one in four US newspapers, or almost 2,200 titles, have shuttered in the past 15 years, according to a University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Media report. Many of the remaining 6,700 publications have become what UNC calls “ghost newspapers”: shells of their former selves, stuffed with adverts and wire copy after years of gutting.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra pointed out that good governance in a crisis was about confronting the truth, taking responsibility and executing actions. The Congress' general secretary has questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mettle as a statesman and his ability to feel compassion while lamenting that he had acted like a “coward” when the country so badly needed true leadership during the devastating pandemic.

A commercial lobster diver says he escaped relatively unscathed after nearly being swallowed by a humpback whale, in a biblical-sounding encounter that whale experts describe as rare but plausible. Michael Packard, 56, said that he was diving off the coast of Provincetown, Mass., on Friday morning when the whale suddenly scooped him up. "I was in his closed mouth for about 30 to 40 seconds before he rose to the surface and spit me out. I am very bruised up but have no broken bones."