Monday, December 8
Headlines
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Los Angeles issued first occupancy permit in Pacific Palisades since wildfires. It’s been almost a year since the Palisades Fire in California began in January 2025. On Saturday, the developer Thomas James Homes hosted an open-house-style event at the ~4,000-square-foot home it’s completed building at 915 Kagawa St., the first in the Palisades to receive a certificate of occupancy since the tragedy, according to the office of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. While some locals see it as a sign of hope for the community, others dispute the milestone. Thomas James Homes bought the home for $3.4 million two months before the fire, according to the Wall Street Journal, and planned to conduct a complete demolition, but the wildfire destroyed it before that could happen. The developer is not selling the house; instead, it’s being used as a model home for the 100 additional houses it hopes to build in Pacific Palisades next year.
Trump hosted Kennedy Center Honors, a first for a president. President Donald Trump and the first lady attended the Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday, months after removing the organization’s bipartisan leadership. According to the Associated Press, the president said during a dinner for the honorees on Saturday that he would be hosting “at the request of a certain television network.” CBS and Paramount+ will air the ceremony on Dec. 23. Both are owned by Paramount Skydance, which is heavily funded by Larry Ellison, a top Trump ally. While walking the red carpet for the event, Trump told reporters that the Netflix–Warner Bros. Discovery deal has “to go through a process, and we’ll see what happens.” He confirmed that he had met with Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos last week, whom he called “fantastic.” The president said he would be involved in deciding whether to green-light the deal. The 2025 Kennedy Center honorees included Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Gaynor, George Strait, the rock band Kiss, and former Phantom of the Opera star Michael Crawford.
A pipe burst at the Louvre, damaging hundreds of tomes. France’s national museum and art gallery can’t seem to catch a break. The Louvre’s deputy general administrator said that flooding last week led to a pipe bursting in one of the rooms of the Egyptian antiquities department’s library, soaking 300 to 400 books, visual periodicals, archaeology journals, and other works, some of which date back to the 1800s. A complete count of affected items is being conducted, and museum staff are attempting to dry and dehumidify them. A major renovation of the Louvre’s HVAC had been planned beginning in September 2026 including the area of the museum affected by the damaged pipe. Didier Rykner, a French art historian, wrote in La Tribune de l’Art that the antiquities department had repeatedly asked the deputy general administrator for funds “to protect these books from a potential rupture of the pipes running through the false ceilings, whose state of dilapidation is well known.”—HVL
Robert Reich
The person who’s been waging illegal wars
Friends,
Trump recently had his name engraved on the U.S. Institute of Peace — now renamed the “Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace.” On Wednesday, the White House confirmed the renaming, calling it “a powerful reminder of what strong leadership can accomplish for global stability.”
Actually, it’s a reminder of what a strong malignant narcissist can accomplish when untethered from reality.
On Friday, Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, the world football league, awarded Trump the first (and likely last) annual FIFA Peace Prize — along with a hagiographic video of Trump and “peace.”
What FIFA has to do with peace is anyone’s guess, but Infantino is evidently trying to curry favor with Trump. (Infantino, by the way, oversaw the 2020 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, defending and minimizing Qatar’s miserable human rights record. He also played a key role in selecting Saudi Arabia to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup, notwithstanding the Saudi murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.)
At A Glance
Speech commonalities across languages.
Watch snowflakes form under a microscope.
Teenager's origami structure holds 10,000 times its weight.
Never-before-seen photos of Rosa Parks.
See art pieces made from radiation masks.
The evolution of skiwear fashion.
Watch a seal wander into a New Zealand bar.
The world's smallest buffalo measures just over 2 feet.
Clickbait: Brace yourself for Ozempets.
Historybook: Mary, Queen of Scots born (1542); The US declares war on Japan (1941); Musician Jim Morrison born (1943); John Lennon murdered outside his residence in New York City (1980); Astronaut and senator John Glenn dies (2016).
1440 Trivia: What was the name of the Yale University historian who found the “lost city” of the Inca? Check back tomorrow (or dig for it here) to see if you were correct.
... and vote on tomorrow's Trivia topic: Deepfakes or Earthquakes.
In The NEWS
Chronic Joint Pain
Arthritis, 101
Arthritis is an umbrella term for numerous separate conditions that affect the joints of our musculoskeletal system. As damage accrues within the joints, arthritis typically results in progressive symptoms that include decreased motion, inflammation, and pain.
About one in five adults worldwide has been diagnosed with some form of arthritis. The associated pain and dysfunction from arthritis are a leading cause of disability across the globe. (Watch an explainer.)
Currently, there is no cure for arthritis. Once the smooth cartilage surface is lost, it cannot be restored. This is an area of intense research, including hope for the use of stem cells, targeted antibodies, and even synthetic cartilage transplants. In general, if the cause is mechanical—such as in degenerative arthritis or post-traumatic arthritis—medications, physical therapy, braces, and injections are used to manage the pain. If the origin is inflammatory, various medications are available to allow for decreased pain and increased motion.
... Read our full explainer on arthritis here.
Also, check out ...
> Why isn't there a cure for arthritis? (Watch)
> Women are more likely than men to have arthritis. (Read)
> Visualizing how rheumatoid arthritis works. (Watch)
> Examine the anatomy of a healthy knee. (More)
Hedging Bets
How hedge funds work
Hedge funds are private investment firms that trade a wide swath of financial assets (such as the stock and debt of publicly traded companies), aiming to make money when markets are both up and down.
Like mutual funds, hedge funds pool money from investors and invest that sum on their behalf, but the similarities mostly end there. Hedge funds—with portfolios ranging from millions to tens of billions of dollars—buy and sell a wide range of assets, from bankrupt companies' debt to commodities like cattle. Mutual funds tend to buy and sell less complex assets, like stocks.
Hedge funds are now a multitrillion-dollar industry that impacts just about every corner of the economy. Yet, the SEC allows only “accredited investors,” such as family offices, university endowments, and high-net-worth individuals to invest in hedge funds due to their risky and complex strategies.
... Read our full write-up on hedge funds here.
Also, check out ...
> See the world's top 10 hedge funds. (Read)
> Understanding short selling, a risky investment strategy. (Read)
> "Vulture" hedge funds target distressed assets. (Read)
> The world's first hedge fund was launched in the 1940s. (Read)
SOURCE: 1440 NEWS
Hip Surgery
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Three years ago, my wife had a hip replacement, and her life after that surgery was magnificently HORRIBLE and PAINFUL.
Her surgeon was from a well-known orthopedic surgeon who had a very positive reputation for this type of surgery.
From the spinal block to waking up from surgery, life was very uncomfortable for her, and it took over three weeks, before she could walk without a walker and another two weeks, for her to walk without a cane.
Off and on, her pain lasted for almost a year and was not completely gone until after 18 months, leaving her with the impression, she had a body not suitable for surgeries.
Her other hip needed to be replaced, but she put it off for over a year because of what she experienced last time.
Fortunately, we were able to find a new orthopedic surgeon at Vanderbilt who was somewhat younger than her first surgeon. Vanderbilt was a four-hour drive from the house.
At Vanderbilt and with this new surgeon, from her spinal block to her waking up after the surgery, she experienced MINIMAL PAIN. Interestingly, the Vanderbilt surgeon performed the exact same surgery that the Knoxville surgeon did.
In three days, she was walking without a walker and in 10 days, she was walking without a cane and also strong enough to drive a vehicle.
Hard to believe that TWO SURGEONS, using the SAME PROCEDURE, could generate such different results.
Not that my wife want to go through another surgery but if she needs to, then we are most definitely going to VANDERBILT...
Programmable metamaterial can morph into more configurations than there are atoms in the universe
An artistic rendering of the metamaterial developed by the lab of Prof. Osama Bilal. Credit: Melanie Keogh
The Wave Engineering for eXtreme and Intelligent maTErials (We-Xite) lab, led by engineering assistant professor Osama R. Bilal, has developed a reconfigurable metamaterial that can control sound waves—bending them, dampening them, or focusing them—while encoding real-time tuning with almost infinite possible shapes. Their work is now published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Metamaterials are artificial materials that can achieve extraordinary properties not easily found in nature," explains Ph.D. candidate Melanie Keogh '22 (ENG), the first author of the study. In this case, the research team wanted to develop a material that could control sound waves, while being adjustable in both frequency and function, with potential applications ranging from medical imaging to soundproofing.
"Metamaterials are artificial materials that can achieve extraordinary properties not easily found in nature," explains Ph.D. candidate Melanie Keogh '22 (ENG), the first author of the study. In this case, the research team wanted to develop a material that could control sound waves, while being adjustable in both frequency and function, with potential applications ranging from medical imaging to soundproofing.
Sunday, December 7
PEARL HARBOR
A Day of Infamy
What happened at Pearl Harbor?
On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (watch visualization). The strike marked the culmination of a decade of rising tensions as Japan expanded its empire across East Asia and the Pacific. With its industrial capacity unable to match the United States in a long-term war, Japanese leaders opted for a preemptive blow designed to cripple American naval power.
The attack—which permanently sank three American ships, damaged 15 more, and killed 2,403 Americans—was a tactical success but a strategic failure. Japanese forces did not hit the base’s oil reserves, submarine facilities, or repair yards, all of which proved crucial in the months that followed. The US Navy ultimately refloated all but three damaged ships, returning many to combat.
Pearl Harbor was the deadliest attack on US soil at the time, jolting the public and neutralizing what remained of isolationist or anti-war sentiment. The next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed Congress (watch here), calling Dec. 7 “a date, which will live in infamy” as he requested—and received—a declaration of war against Japan. Four days later, Germany's Adolf Hitler declared war on the US, pulling America fully into both theaters of World War II.
... Read what else we learned about the day here.
Also, check out ...
> A downed Japanese pilot sparked a three-day standoff on the island of Niʻihau. (Listen)
> One Japanese commander went on "The Merv Griffin Show" decades later. (Watch)
> Small wooden tail fins modified torpedoes to operate in the harbor's shallow water. (Read)
> Watch how engineers salvaged almost every sunken ship at Pearl Harbor. (Watch)
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