Category: Newley’s Notes

Sent as a newsletter Sunday, December 25. Not on my email list? Enter your address here.

👋 Hi friends,

🎄Merry Christmas!

Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes, a weekly newsletter containing my recent Wall Street Journal stories, must-read links on tech and life, and funny dog videos.

🚨 Administrative note NN will be away until after the new year. I’ll see you again in 2023, friends!

Image of the week, above:

🌅 A recent Hong Kong sunset. People seriously don’t understand how beautiful this city is.

My WSJ latest:

🔎 My last story of 2022, out a couple weeks ago, before I departed on holiday: Google Faces Pressure in Hong Kong Over Search Results for National Anthem

It began:

Google is under fire from officials and legislators in Hong Kong over a pro-democracy song that is showing up in search results for the national anthem, raising tensions between American tech giants and authorities as Beijing tries to spread patriotism in the city.

As they say: Watch this space.

Here are my top 10 new things of 2022:

1) 📚 Book: “Surveillance State: Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control, ” by Josh Chin and Liza Lin. A deeply reported, downright frightening work by my WSJ colleagues that shows the extent to which Beijing has siphoned up data on its citizens in order to influence their behavior. A must-read for anyone who’s interested in digital privacy or China (or both), and a cautionary tale for people everywhere given the extent to which governments and corporations around the world increasingly have access to our electronic details.

2) 🍿 Movie: “Top Gun: Maverick.” If you don’t like this feel-good, adrenaline-packed masterwork that — best of all — doesn’t take itself too seriously, well, I can’t be your friend. Because it probably means you don’t love America hard enough.

3) 🎸 Album: “Cruel Country,” by Wilco. The band, which was once known as alt-country and then morphed into much more, riffs on…country music in this double album.

4) 📺 TV series: “Somebody Somewhere.” Shines a light on the unique people in small town America who are often ignored. And a special shout-out to the magnificent “Better Call Saul” — could it even be better than “Breaking Bad?” It just might be — which ended this year.

5) 🎧 Podcast: “The Eastern Oregon Connection.” Given my roots in Pendleton, Oregon, I have loved this straightforward show: Locals Ryan Smith and Shannon Hartley interview interesting people from the community and surrounding region — farmers, coaches, physical therapists, entrepreneurs and more. That’s it! There should be more podcasts like this one.

6) 📷 Best gadget: I’m going to fudge a bit here as the Fujifilm X100V came out in 2020, but I only got it this year. It’s a compact camera with a prime lens that captures beautiful images. It is also a gorgeous machine itself. (I took the sunset pic above using my modest iPhone 12, though.)

7) 🐘 Best web service: Maybe it’s recency bias, and it’s been around for some time, but 2022 saw growing adoption of Mastodon after Elon Musk took over Twitter. I was skeptical at first that it could work at scale, and Twitter still has massive network effects, but I think Mastodon now represents a legitimate Twitter alternative. (I’m @newley@journa.host, by the way.)

8) 📱Related — best Mastodon iOS app: Metatext. Simple, clean, open source.

9) 🧤 Best save: Emi Martinez saves with his left foot (from 1:28 in the video) in extra time to preserve the 3-3 draw for Argentina and get them to penalties in the best World Cup final match of all time….

10) ⚽ …During which Leo Messi scored the year’s best goal: an outrageously nonchalant penalty (from 0:28 in the video) under unthinkable pressure. Epic.

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🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

Dogs at a shelter getting to pick Christmas presents

•••

💡 Quote of the week:

“Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.” — Carol Burnett

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🤗 What’s new with you? Hit reply to send me tips, queries, random comments, and videos of excited canines.

•••

👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as a newsletter Monday, December 5. Not on my email list? Enter your address here.

👋 Hi friends,

Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes, a weekly newsletter containing my recent Wall Street Journal stories, must-read links on tech and life, and funny dog videos.

Image of the week, above:

🥧 Once again, for Thanksgiving, I made my Aunt Cece’s world-famous pecan pie.

And once again, it did not disappoint.

My WSJ latest:

🐦 I had two stories out last week, both about Twitter.

The first, with my colleague Selina Cheng, on Wednesday: Twitter Becomes Stage for China Protests Despite Ban by Beijing.

The lede:

Twitter is banned in China, but it is proving a critical platform for getting videos and images of protests occurring across the nation out to the rest of the world.

One Twitter user we profiled, who goes by Li Laoshi, or Teacher Li, had about 760,000 followers at that point, more than three times the number before the demonstrations began. The count has now surpassed 818,000.

And the second story, a spot news piece out Friday with my colleague Sarah Needleman: Kanye West Suspended From Twitter After Swastika Tweet. It began:

Twitter Inc. again suspended Kanye West’s account after the musician and designer posted a swastika in a tweet that the social-media platform’s owner, Elon Musk, said violated its rules.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) ⚽ The U.S. lost to the Netherlands 3–1 in the World Cup round of 16. Yes, we made it out of a tough group and were beaten by a much stronger team with more seasoned players and a more storied footballing history. But some avoidable defensive mistakes cost us the game. Still, with World Cup 2026 in the U.S., Canada and Mexico – and one of the youngest teams at this year’s competition – I’m optimistic about our future.

2) 🧤 One bright spot for U.S. Men’s National Team fans, and goalkeepers everywhere: Matt Turner. He walked on at Fairfield University and once gave up a goal so bad it went viral, but has since made it to MLS and the Premier League. He had a great tournament.

3) 🎧 For an entertaining summation of the U.S. performance and thoughts on where the team goes from here, check out this Men in Blazers podcast episode.

4) ⭐ Elsewhere: The Financial Times’s 25 most influential women of 2022.

5) ☀️ How solar engineering could help mitigate climate change.

6) 🐢 Happy birthday to Jonathan, the world’s oldest tortoise, who just turned 190.

7) 💡 Why are streetlights in the U.S., Canada and Ireland turning purple?

8) 🔉 Here’s a collection of obsolete sounds.

9) 🍎 The tastiest apples, ranked.

10) 🐻 And now for something completely bizarre: “Cocaine Bear” is a real movie. Here is the trailer.

•••

🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“Thanksgiving at Michigan Animal Rescue League 💙”

•••

💡 Quote of the week:

“No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.” – Daniel Kahneman

👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as a newsletter Sunday, November 22. Not on my email list? Enter your address here.

👋 Hi friends,

Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes, a weekly newsletter containing my recent Wall Street Journal stories, must-read links on tech and life, and funny dog videos.

Image of the week, above:

Another excellent vanity plate, spotted here in Hong Kong. If you work hard, as the saying goes, you gotta…

My WSJ latest:

🇮🇳 My latest, out Wednesday: Facebook Parent Meta Sees Executive Exodus in India

It begins:

Three of Meta Platforms Inc.’s top executives in India have departed the company in recent weeks, with the Facebook parent changing the country’s reporting structure amid its first broad global restructuring, according to people familiar with the matter.

They were: India head Ajit Mohan; the head of WhatsApp in India, Abhijit Bose; and Rajiv Aggarwal, Meta India’s public policy director.

The story included the exclusive tidbit that India’s office, which long reported to HQ in Menlo Park, California, will now report to Meta’s Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore. (That was later confirmed in a statement from Meta announcing the new India head, Sandhya Devanathan.)

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) ⚽ The World Cup is here! Ecuador defeated hosts Qatar 2–0 in the opening match yesterday. And England just demolished Iran 6–2.

2) 🍺 More on the World Cup: My WSJ colleagues have the inside story of how (chaotically) and why (a late decision by the Qatari royal family) the tournament’s last-minute beer ban came to be.

3) 📺 And finally: Qatar are a controversial World Cup host. England footballing great turned TV presenter Gary Lineker kicked off the BBC’s coverage of the event with a sober rundown of some of the issues.

4) 🐦 The latest on Twitter: Elon Musk has reinstated Former President Trump’s account, but it’s unclear if Trump will return, given his commitment to his own social media platform, Truth Social.

5) 💸 The FTX débâcle, simplified, by economist Alex Tabarrok.

6) 🇹🇭 Here’s a New York Times travel piece on the revitalization of Bangkok’s Charoen Krung Road, which runs along the Chao Phraya River.

7) 💔 How “Love Is Blind,” over the course of three seasons, went from a “sociological fairy tale to a reality TV nightmare.”

8) 🔉 Soundprint is “like Yelp, but for noise” – an app that helps you find quiet bars, restaurants, and other places.

9) 🎧 Podcast of the week: Ken Burns talks to Tyler Cowen about making documentaries, why he’s lived in the same small New Hampshire town for decades, and why he loves quilts.

10) 🐼 This is the best 12-second compilation of panda fails you will see this week. (Thanks, Anasuya!)

•••

🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“There are some Wonderful people in this world”

•••

💡 Quote of the week:

“It’s faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as a newsletter November 13, 2022. Not on my list? Sign up here.

👋 Hi friends,

Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes, a weekly newsletter containing my recent Wall Street Journal stories, must-read links on tech and life, and funny dog videos.

Image of the week, above:

🐶 I passed by a restaurant here in Hong Kong the other day and had to snap a pic of this King Charles Spaniel birthday party. The one in the middle was turning four!

My WSJ latest:

My latest, a story out Thursday with my colleague Sam Schechner: Facebook Parent Meta Announces Layoffs of 11,000 Staff.

It begins:

Meta Platforms Inc. said it would cut more than 11,000 workers, or 13% of staff, embarking on the company’s first broad restructuring as it copes with a slumping digital-ad market and plunging stock price.

The layoffs add to a wave of job cuts that are roiling Silicon Valley, where tech giants that added employees by the tens of thousands through the pandemic are now retrenching.

In a message to staff on Wednesday morning, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said the company, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, would cut staff across all of its businesses, with its recruiting and business teams disproportionately affected.

Indeed, what a few days it’s been in the world of big tech. Read on…

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 🐦 A week after billionaire Elon Musk acquired Twitter, the company began mass layoffs – thousands are estimated to have been fired – and now advertisers are fleeing the platform.

2) 👉 More: My WSJ colleagues have the story of what Musk’s first week was like inside the company.

3) 👀 Bonus link: examples of how mischief makers took advantage of Twitter’s new verification rules to impersonate companies.

4) 🛍️ Elsewhere, Amazon’s CEO is conducing a cost-cutting review, with special attention on the company’s Alexa business, my WSJ colleagues reported in a Thursday exclusive.

5) 💸 And then there’s FTX, the cryptocurrency platform, valued at $32 billion earlier this year, which declared bankruptcy on Friday. My colleagues have a look at how founder Sam Bankman-Fried has gone from “crypto hero to villain.”

6) 🇺🇸 On to politics! Shot: A predicted “red wave” in Congressional midterms has not materialized; Democrats are maintaining control of the Senate, and the House is still up for grabs.

7) ⭐ Chaser: “The single most important result of this election was the triumph of the normies,” says David Brooks. “Establishmentarian, practical leaders who are not always screaming angrily at you did phenomenally well, on right and left…”

8) 🇷🇺 Russia withdrew from the Ukrainian city of Kherson, another major setback for Putin.

9) 🐙 Octopuses apparently get grouchy and throw stuff at one another.

10) ⚽ The World Cup in Qatar starts on November 21 – a week from tomorrow! (Yes, it’s weird to have the tournament in the winter, but playing there in the summer was a non-starter.) Here’s a PDF of the match schedule. I will, of course, be pulling for the recently finalized U.S. squad.

💯 Also, here’s bonus footballing video: A player for Poland’s Warta Poznan amputee team, Marcin Oleksy, recently scored a beautiful goal (Thanks, Randy P.!).

•••

🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“this adorable puppy trying to bark away the hiccups will make your day”

•••

💡 Quote of the week:

“True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.” – Edith Wharton

•••

🤗 What’s new with you? Hit reply to send me tips, queries, random comments, and videos of hiccuping pups.

•••

👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as a newsletter Oct. 30, 2022. Not on my list? Sign up here.

👋 Hi friends,

Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes, a weekly newsletter containing my recent Wall Street Journal stories, must-read links on tech and life, and funny dog videos.

✨ Image of the week, above:

🇭🇰 I can’t put my finger on what it is I like about this photo I snapped near Causeway Bay here in Hong Kong recently – the light, the movement of the pedestrians, the canyon of buildings in the background – but it captures the mid-day, lunchtime feeling of the city, with hundreds or thousands of people in any given area heading in all manner of directions, all for various reasons.

My WSJ latest:

🇮🇳 My latest story, out last weekend, is headlined: Meta-Backed Meesho Is Beating Amazon, Walmart in Race for Indian Shoppers. It begins:

An upstart e-commerce service is winning more new shoppers in India than Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc.’s Flipkart, posing a challenge to the U.S. retailing titans, which have plowed billions of dollars into the world’s biggest untapped digital market.

That service: Meesho, which an app analytics firm said was the world’s most-downloaded shopping app during the first half of the year, with some 127 million downloads. It’s growing quickly especially in India’s smaller cities and towns.

“Meesho is my Zara,” an 18-year-old shopper told us.

Click through to read the rest.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 🦠 A story that’s been getting a lot of attention online since it came out Friday: a deep investigation by Katherine Eban and Jeff Kao into the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the potential origins of Covid.

2) 🐦 Now that Elon Musk has taken over Twitter, here’s a look at what might come next (un-banning accounts, such as Donald Trump’s? Combating bots? Allowing more kinds of speech? New business model?)

3) ✈️ A fascinating tale from my WSJ colleagues: Inside the Secret Prisoner Swap That Splintered the U.S. and China.

4) 🛸 The Pentagon and intelligence agencies are set to update a report on UFOs, concluding that many phenomena spotted by U.S. pilots have been surveillance operations by countries such as China, optical illusions or aerial debris – that is, not aliens.

5) 🤑 The always excellent Matt Levine has written a 40,000-word long cover story – “The Crypto Story” – that comprises the entire issue of the latest Bloomberg Businessweek.

6) 🚌 A sad result of Covid-inspired disruptions to U.S. schools: a massive decline in math and reading scores, a new test shows.

7) 🗣 A video journey through Ireland and the U.K, by accents.

8) 🤭 The 2022 finalists for the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards are out.

9) 📺 HBO Max will release a three-part documentary series on the South Carolina Murdaugh murders on November 3.

10) 🌲 Go to Tree.fm to hear the sounds of forests around the world.

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🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

🐕 “this man built a racetrack in his backyard for his dogs”

•••

💡 Quote of the week:

“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn

•••

👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as a newsletter October 16, 2022. Not on my list? Enter your email here.

👋 Hi friends,

Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes, a weekly newsletter containing my recent Wall Street Journal stories, must-read links on tech and life, and funny dog videos.

✨ Image of the week, above:

☀️ The weather here in Hong Kong has been fantastic the last couple of weeks, with deep blue skies, a gentle breeze, and temperatures dipping ever so slightly to about 80 Fahrenheit (27 Celsius).

💐 Here’s a photo of our beloved Ginger on a recent walk. Sometimes you’ve gotta stop and smell the flowers.

🆕 My WSJ latest:

🚢 My latest, out Monday: In Hong Kong, Sanctioned Russian Tycoon’s Superyacht Sparks U.S.-China Spat.

It begins:

The anchoring in Hong Kong waters of a sanctioned Russian oligarch’s superyacht is ramping up tensions between Beijing and Washington, which warned against the financial center being used as a safe haven.

The 465-foot Nord, owned by steel magnate Alexey Mordashov, moored west of the Chinese territory’s Victoria Harbour last week after departing from the far-eastern Russian city of Vladivostok, according to website MarineTraffic.

Its presence has drawn onlookers in passing boats eager to snap photos of one the world’s biggest luxury vessels. Equipped with two helicopter pads, a cinema and swimming pool, it can be seen flying a Russian flag. It has also ignited a spat between U.S. and Chinese officials, already at loggerheads over Beijing’s crackdowns on freedoms in the former British colony.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 🇨🇳 Chinese leader Xi Jinping in a speech Sunday opening the twice-a-decade Communist Party congress “cast himself as the decisive helmsman his country needs in surmounting great adversity,” my WSJ colleague Chun Han Wong reports. (Xi had been in power ten years and appears set for another five.)

2) 🇺🇸 President Biden said in his administration’s national security strategy that this “decisive decade” must see the U.S. “outcompeting China and restraining Russia.” You can read the document here .

3) ⚖️ A jury ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay $965 million to Sandy Hook victims’ relatives for his lies about the school shooting.

4) 📺 Netflix is launching next month a less expensive service, supported by ads, that will cost $6.99 a month .

5) 🥽 Meta debuted its $1,499 virtual reality headset, meant for professional use…though it’s unclear what working in the metaverse means, exactly.

6) 🔍 Actress Angela Lansbury, best known for her role on “Murder She Wrote,” died at age 96.

7) 🎸 Also RIP Mike Schank, buddy of filmmaker Mark Borchadt in the wonderful 1999 documentary “American Movie.”

8) 🤑 Salary Transparent Street is a YouTube channel in which people are interviewed on the street about how much money they make.

9) 🔥 Artist Damien Hirst burned 1,000 of his paintings , which now exist only as NFTs.

10) 🇮🇹 The trailer for the second season of “White Lotus” is out, featuring Michael Imperioli (!) and set in Sicily.

•••

🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“Who wants to see a BIRTHDAY-slam?!”

•••

💡 Quote of the week:

“Everything changes. Don’t be afraid.” — Al Swearengen, in “Deadwood”

•••

👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as a newsletter October 4, 2022. Not on my list? Enter your email here.

👋 Hi friends,

Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes, a weekly newsletter containing my recent Wall Street Journal stories, must-read links on tech and life, and funny dog videos.

✨ Image of the week, above: another excellent Hong Kong vanity plate. YOLO VIBE.

🏆 Brag of the week: I’m so proud that our WSJ Facebook Files team, led by the great Jeff Horwitz, won this year’s Loeb Award for beat reporting.

Here’s the full list of winners. More details are in this Newley.com blog post.

That means in addition to the Loeb, our team has taken home a Polk Award, a SABEW, and an award from the Deadline Club.

I’m lucky to work with such phenomenal colleagues.

🚨 Programming note: There will be no NN next week. I’ll return after that.

My WSJ latest:

🆕 My most recent story, an exclusive out Wednesday: Meta Officials Cite Security Concerns for Failing to Release Full India Hate-Speech Study.

It begins:

Executives at Meta Platforms Inc. privately told rights groups that security concerns prevented them from releasing details of its investigation into hate speech on its services in India, according to audio recordings heard by The Wall Street Journal.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 🇷🇺 Lots of news about Russia’s war in Ukraine. First, many thousands of Russians are crossing borders into Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia and other countries following Putin’s announcement of a broad mobilization for new troops…

2) 🔫 …Meanwhile: Putin said in a speech that Russia is annexing four regions of Ukraine, a move that is illegal…

3) ⚠️ …and not long afterward, Russia lost control of the city of Lyman – in one of those very regions it has claimed…

4) 🇺🇦 …Now Ukraine is forging ahead in a bold counteroffensive, and there is increased risk that Putin could deploy nuclear weapons. Got all that?

5) 🚀 In happier news: NASA sent a spacecraft hurtling into an asteroid 7 million miles away to test the ability to change its orbit, addressing a potential future doomsday scenario ripped from the “Armageddon” screenplay.

6) 🪨 Please meet Kurt Steiner, the world’s best stone skipper.

7) 🚶‍♀️Here are the world’s 33 coolest streets, according to TimeOut.

8) 🛍️ Looria shows the most popular products discussed on Reddit.

9) 🗺 How athletes are creating art using GPS trackers.

10) 😂 Video the week: “French TV show invited people with unusual laughs to sit together…the outcome is” effing “brilliant.” (Don’t miss the replies.)

•••

🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“Fastest Girl”

•••

💡 Quote of the week:

“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you are doing.” – W. Edwards Deming

•••

🤗 What’s new with you? Hit reply to send me tips, queries, random comments, and videos of laser-focused canines.

•••

👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as a newsletter September 25. Not on my list? Enter your email here.

👋 Hi friends,

Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes, a weekly newsletter containing my recent Wall Street Journal stories, must-read links on tech and life, and funny dog videos.

Image of the week, above: The mood here in Hong Kong following news that hotel quarantine, part of the city’s Covid control measures, is being phased out. Read on…

My WSJ latest:

🇮🇳 My latest, an exclusive out Thursday, Sept. 22: Proton CEO Is Shutting Down India VPN Servers to Protest Cybersecurity Rules.

The lede:

The Swiss company behind well-known virtual-private-network service Proton VPN is pulling its servers from India, the latest provider to do so in response to new government rules that companies and rights groups say threaten users’ privacy.

“It’s going to have a chilling effect,” Proton Chief Executive Andy Yen told me. “I find it really sad that the world’s largest democracy is taking this path.”

File under: New Delhi continues to get tough with foreign tech firms.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 🇭🇰 The Hong Kong government said Friday it’s ending hotel quarantining for travelers, starting Monday. Pre-flight Covid PCR tests will no longer be required. For three days after arrival, however, those arriving in HK will have to avoid bars and restaurants. The mood here among those eager to hit the road: See photo above.

2) 🇮🇷 Iran is seeing its biggest anti-government protests in years. They kicked off when a 22-year-old woman died in the custody of morality police.

3) 💰 Headline of the week, in the FT, based on income distribution data: “Britain and the US are poor societies with some very rich people.”

4) 🪐 The new images of Neptune and its rings from the James Webb Space Telescope are breathtaking.

5) 🎨 Psychiatrists in Brussels can now prescribe museum visits for people suffering from anxiety, stress or depression.

6) 🙅‍♂️ Oh, dear: “NyQuil chicken” may be the next Tide Pod challenge.

7) 🌃 Is New York still the city that never sleeps?

8) 📱 Wait, gifs are uncool now?

9) 🧁 A real thing, apparently: Dairy Queen is giving away pillows that smell like cinnamon and pumpkin.

10) 📺 A Good Movie to Watch is a directory of “Highly rated yet little-known movies and shows.”

•••

🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“Gracie the golden retriever enjoys her first snowfall”

•••

💡 Quote of the week:

“Speak little, do much." – Benjamin Franklin

•••

👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as a newsletter September 5. Not on my list? Sign up here.

👋 Hi friends,

Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes, a weekly newsletter containing my recent Wall Street Journal stories, must-read links on tech and life, and funny dog videos.

Image of the week, above: In skyscraper-laden like Hong Kong, it’s always tempting to look up. But looking down can be equally interesting.

My WSJ latest:

📲 My colleague Yang Jie and I had a story out Thursday, following the iPhone 14 announcement (more on that below), providing some perspectives from Asia.

The headline: Apple’s New iPhones Create Buzz in China, but Local Rivals Loom. It begins:

Apple Inc.’s latest iPhones drew favorable interest in China after it decided not to raise some prices, but the company faces challenges in one of its most important markets from local rivals.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 🇬🇧 Queen Elizabeth II died at age 96. She “defined the monarchy for generations of Britons,” our WSJ obit read, with her death “plunging the U.K. into mourning and giving the country its first new head of state in 70 years, her son, King Charles III."

🎧 For more perspective on her life – and the state of the monarchy – I recommend this episode of The Journal podcast, with our UK correspondent, Max Colchester.

2) 🇺🇦 Shot: Ukraine is making rapid advances by retaking territory in the east of the country, inflicting on Russia its worst setback since it gave up its attack on Kyiv.

3) 👉 Chaser: “We must expect that a Ukrainian victory,” in the war, “and certainly a victory in Ukraine’s understanding of the term, also brings about the end of Putin’s regime,” Anne Applebaum writes in The Atlantic.

4) 💻 Andrew Rice and Olivia Nuzzi, in New York magazine: “The Sordid Saga of Hunter Biden’s Laptop.”

5) 🍎 Apple introduced its new iPhone 14 lineup, which includes new Pro models and a larger Plus model. It also announced a new high-end version of the Apple Watch, the Apple Watch Ultra, and updated its AirPods Pro headphones.

6) 🎾 Big tennis news: Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz won the U.S. Open at age 19, becoming the youngest man to win a grand slam since Rafael Nadal in 2005. Alcaraz will become the world’s youngest ATP number one.

7) 🌡 Thousands of people in Colorado who signed up for an energy saving program were unable to adjust their smart thermostats when temperatures soared, due to what a utlitiy company called a “system emergency.”

8) ♟️ Accusations of cheating are roiling the chess world.

9) ⌨️ In The New Yorker, David Owen examines mechanical keyboard enthusiasts.

10) 🌽 Seven-year-old Tariq, of the viral “Corn Kid” video and song, has been named South Dakota’s official Corn-bassador.

•••

🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“It’s 400 degrees in LA. Please enjoy this video of my dog trying to drink out of a garden hose”

•••

💡 Quote of the week:

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” – Douglas Adams in “The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.”

👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,