The Weekend Bravely (#11)
Citronella, crazy heat, and (more) living dead.
The Weekend Bravely is a (mostly) weekly round-up of stories you probably missed, but shouldn’t.
Stop buying citronella candles. We’re just a few weeks away from the unofficial start of summer, when we break out our BBQs and white shoes. It’s also when mosquitos get ready to feast on us. And it turns out, most of what we do to stop this blood buffet doesn’t work. Wirecutter takes a look at what does. (via The New York Times)
There’s a plan to expand the House of Representatives. Back in February, I wrote a column about why it’s time to expand the House of Representatives, which has become ever-more unrepresentative since it was frozen at 435 members in 1929. In a fascinating Opinion piece in The Washington Post, Danielle Allen takes a look at how the House chamber could be configured to seat up to 1,700 members. (via The Washington Post)
The climate has already changed. As I type this column, it’s 80 degrees in Seattle - the first time the city has hit 80 in May since 2008, and one of only six times since 1948. On Sunday, the mercury will hit 90, almost 30 degrees above normal. And in a city in which only 53% of homes have A/C (the second-lowest rate in the country), this heat wave is deadly. (via The Washington Post)
Don’t turn that dial. Ford recently announced it was tuning out AM radio in all new cars (1 in 5 AM radio listeners owns a Ford), and BMW, Tesla, Volvo, Mazda, VW, and Polestar are axing AM from all electric models. These moves could spell doom for many of the country’s more than 4,000 AM radio stations, which are a crucial source of local news, weather, and emergency alerts for rural communities across the country. It turns out there’s finally an issue that unites the right and the left. (via The Washington Post)
The night of the living dead. On April 29th, at 12:01am, Australian Bride and Prejudice reality TV star Dannii Erskine died in the hospital following horrific injuries sustained in a car crash. Except the police, the Victoria state coroner, and the funeral home that (supposedly) put on her final farewell have no record of her dying. Why does this keep happening? (via The Daily Beast)