A sample of my professional writing work, including newsletters for OZY Media and blog posts for Yahoo!
The Presidential Daily Brief – OZY Media
From 2013-2023 I worked on OZY Media’s Presidential Daily Brief, editing and occasionally writing a daily newsletter covering the morning’s top stories with an international perspective, but for a primarily U.S. audience. These are examples of pieces I wrote. NOTE: OZY has gone out of business and the site is no longer accessible, so unfortunately links no longer work.
IMPORTANT
Two Years On
Coup Anniversary Sees Myanmar in the Grip of Civil War In the two years since Myanmar’s military ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, the junta has cracked down on dissidents, imprisoned journalists and executed pro-democracy activists. Human rights groups estimate 2,900 people have been killed and more than 17,500 have been arrested — and accusations of atrocities, like air strikes on schools, have become more frequent as clashes with rebel groups have escalated into a civil war. Today protesters marked the second anniversary of the coup with a “silent strike.” Photos on social media showed nearly empty streets in capital Yangon as residents stayed home in protest against military rule. (Sources: BBC, CNN, AP)
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| Offshore Justice Four More Suspects in Haiti Assassination Charged in US A total of seven suspects in the July 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse are now in American custody, the U.S. Justice Department confirmed Tuesday. Three Haitian Americans and a Colombian national, considered the ringleaders of the plot, were transferred to Miami Tuesday and are due in court today. The men had been held in detention in Haiti since shortly after Moïse’s murder, but authorities decided to try them in the U.S. — on the grounds that the plot was partly conceived in Florida — as the Caribbean nation’s government institutions have crumbled in the years since the assassination. (Sources: Al Jazeera, NYT) Dancing in the Dark Iranian Couple Sentenced to 10 Years for Dancing in Public Instagram influencers Astiaj Haghighi and Amir Mohammad Ahmadi were convicted of “encouraging corruption and public prostitution” as well as “gathering with the intention of disrupting national security” after they were filmed dancing near Tehran’s Azadi (Freedom) Tower in November. In the viral video, Haghighi was not wearing a head covering, in defiance of Iran’s strict dress code for women — who are also not allowed to dance in public. Tehran has cracked down on dissent since protests erupted over the death of Mahsa Amini in September: More than 14,000 people have been arrested and hundreds have been killed. (Sources: WaPo, AFP) OK, Computer Maker of ChatGPT Releases Plagiarism-Detection Tool Educators have grown increasingly concerned over students using ChatGPT — the popular chatbot capable of producing detailed and articulate answers — since OpenAI released it Nov. 30. Some districts have banned ChatGPT from classrooms, while others are encouraging its use as a learning tool rather than a plagiarism machine. On Tuesday the company launched its new AI Text Classifier to help spot when text was produced by artificial intelligence. But OpenAI’s Jan Leike said the tool “is imperfect and it will be wrong sometimes,” warning, “We don’t fundamentally know what kind of pattern it pays attention to, or how it works internally.” (Sources: The Verge, AP) Briefly Here are some things you should know about today: Monkey business. Two emperor tamarins that went missing from the Dallas Zoo Tuesday have been recovered from a closet in a nearby home. The zoo’s had a spate of trouble recently as a clouded leopard escaped from a vandalized enclosure and an endangered vulture was found dead under suspicious circumstances. (Source: WaPo) Needle in a haystack. The missing radioactive capsule that fell out of a truck in Western Australia has been found lying near the side of the road. (Source: BBC) Just visiting? Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has applied for a tourist visa to remain in the U.S. after he entered the country on a special visa for heads of state two days before his successor’s inauguration. (Source: The Guardian) |
| INTRIGUING A.I. Phone Home Has a College Student’s Machine Learning Algorithm Found Aliens? When Peter Ma was still in high school he started developing a new neural network technique to scan space noise for “technosignatures” of intelligent life — and now he’s found some. The University of Toronto undergrad’s algorithm reexamined 150 terabytes of data from 820 nearby stars — data that was previously analyzed by classical techniques and found to be “devoid of interesting signals.” But Ma’s deep learning algorithm has already returned eight signals of interest — and together with SETI and Breakthrough Listen, the team is about to scale up their search to 1 million more stars using South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope array. (Sources: Phys.org, Popular Science) Life Finds a Way ‘De-Extinction’ Startup Plans to Bring Back the Dodo On Tuesday genetic engineering company Colossal Biosciences announced it has secured $150 million in seed funding to resurrect the famously extinct flightless bird — along with the woolly mammoth and the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger. Colossal, founded in 2021 by Harvard geneticist George Church and entrepreneur Ben Lamm, aims to edit the genomes of living relatives of the extinct creatures to create proxy species that would fill their empty ecological niches. All three animals’ genomes have been sequenced, but “de-extinction” will probably take years: It relies on technology that’s still being developed — though it could eventually benefit human health care too. (Sources: Gizmodo, Wired) Art Pollution Study Suggests Impressionist Paintings Inspired by Smog Researchers have analyzed changes in style and color by Claude Monet and Joseph Mallord William Turner during the Industrial Revolution, revealing that their hazy skies may have been less a stylistic choice and more a reflection of industrial air pollution. Using a mathematical model, researchers tracked sharpness of outlines and levels of contrast in 60 Turner paintings and 38 Monets and found that their painted landscapes got hazier as sulfur dioxide emissions increased. “Impressionism is often contrasted with realism,” study co-author Peter Huybers said, “but our results highlight that Turner and Monet’s impressionistic works also capture a certain reality.” (Source: WaPo) Apex Predator Influencer Fined $18K for Cooking and Eating Great White Shark A food blogger in Nanchong, China, is in deep water after buying, cooking and consuming a six-foot shark and broadcasting it to millions of followers. The woman, username Tizi, said, “It may look vicious, but its meat is truly very tender.” She then tore chunks from the carcass with her teeth. Great white sharks are endangered in China and it’s illegal to kill, buy or eat them, and Tizi has been fined $18,500. It’s unclear if she’ll face jail time — but authorities may look higher up the food chain for the person who sold the ill-fated shark online. (Source: Fortune) Order on the Court Coach Busted for Impersonating 13-Year-Old JV Basketball Player A high school girls’ basketball program in Portsmouth, Virginia, has ended its season early after it was discovered that a 22-year-old assistant coach suited up and pretended to be an absent player. Arlisha Boykins, who took the court in a junior varsity game against young teens on Jan. 21, has since been fired, along with the varsity and JV coaches. The father of the impersonated 13-year-old said, “Coaches always preach to the kids about integrity and those types of things, so I was just shocked.” He noted that his daughter won’t be returning to Churchland High School next year. (Sources: USA Today, Yahoo Sports) |
IMPORTANT
‘Shame on Us’
Congress Urged to Pass Police Reform Bill in Wake of Nichols’ Death
Amid ongoing protests over the death of Tyre Nichols — who was beaten, pepper-sprayed and shocked by Memphis police officers — his family’s attorney urged Congress to revisit a bill aimed at curbing police misconduct. “Shame on us if we don’t use his tragic death to finally get the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act passed,” Ben Crump said. The bill, which passed the House in 2021 but stalled in the Senate, would limit immunity for officers accused of misconduct and ban chokeholds, among other measures. Even if a revised bill passes the Senate, Republican House leaders are unlikely to put it to a vote. (Sources: WaPo, BBC)
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| During Prayers Dozens Killed in Explosion at Pakistan Mosque At least 28 people have been killed and more than 150 injured after a blast in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. The mosque, which was filled with worshippers during afternoon prayers, is reportedly located in a police compound and mostly attended by law enforcement officials. Police say more people are likely trapped in the rubble. Local media reports suggest the blast may have been caused by a suicide bomber “sitting in the front row of the congregational prayers.” No one has claimed responsibility, but Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif promised “stern action” against those behind the attack. (Sources: Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN) Fighting Words Boris Johnson Says Putin Threatened UK With Missile Strike The former British prime minister revealed to the BBC that in a phone call shortly before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin warned that he could hit the U.K. with a missile. Johnson said, “He threatened me at one point, and he said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you but, with a missile, it would only take a minute’ or something like that. Jolly.” No reference to the exchange appeared in official accounts of the call. Johnson said he believed Putin was “just playing along” with negotiations during a time when Western leaders were trying to dissuade him from war. (Source: BBC) Bad Day at Work Mining Company ‘Sorry’ for Losing Radioactive Capsule Officials in Western Australia have dispatched search teams to track down a dangerously radioactive capsule that’s smaller than a penny. The cylinder, which is part of a sensor used by mining company Rio Tinto, is believed to have fallen out of a truck somewhere along an 870-mile journey through the desert. “We recognize this is clearly very concerning and are sorry for the alarm it has caused,” said Rio Tinto CEO Simon Trott. Authorities warn that the public should keep their distance from the capsule, which could quickly cause radiation burns or radiation sickness, while prolonged exposure may cause cancer. (Sources: NYT, SMH) Briefly Here are some things you should know about today: NATO over newbie. On Saturday, the Czech Republic elected Petr Pavel, a retired senior NATO general, as president over populist billionaire Andrej Babis. (Source: NYT) Not showing up. Tunisians expressed their disapproval of President Kais Saied’s policies with just 11% voting in parliamentary elections Sunday. “Almost 90% of Tunisian voters ignored this piece of theater and refused to be involved in the process,” said an opposition leader. (Source: The Guardian) He’s … sorry? The suspect in last year’s attack on Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband called into a California TV station from jail. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get more of them,” the man said. “I should’ve come better prepared.” (Source: WaPo) |
| INTRIGUING Bad Lessons Neo-Nazi Homeschool Network With Thousands of Members Revealed The Ohio couple behind the “Dissident Homeschool” Telegram channel, which distributes lesson plans focusing on white supremacy and neo-Nazi ideology to its 2,400 members, has been exposed. The network’s administrators, who call themselves “Mr. and Mrs. Saxon,” were revealed by an antifascist research group as Logan and Katja Lawrence using biographical information the couple shared on the network and on podcast appearances — including that their German shepherd was named Blondi after Adolf Hitler’s dog. Katja explained on a neo-Nazi podcast that they launched the network in 2021 because she “was having a rough time finding Nazi-approved school material” for her children. (Sources: Vice, HuffPost) Déjà Vu Facial Recognition Identifies Mysterious Raphael Masterpiece British researchers have used artificial intelligence to match a painting known as the de Brécy Tondo to the famous faces on the Italian Renaissance master’s Sistine Madonna. Visual computing professor Hassan Ugail’s facial recognition algorithm revealed that the two paintings’ Madonnas had 97% similarity. The late art collector George Lester Winward, convinced the de Brécy Tondo was a genuine Raphael when he bought it in 1981, has finally been vindicated. “Looking at the faces with the human eye shows an obvious similarity,” Ugail explained, “but the computer can see far more deeply than we can, in thousands of dimensions, to pixel level.” (Source: Smithsonian)  Fierce Looks ‘Selfie Bear’ Discovers Wildlife Camera, Strikes 400 Poses A black bear in Boulder, Colorado, has become a viral star after it came across a motion-detecting camera in the wilderness and began admiring its own reflection. The ursine influencer snapped 400 selfies — of the 580 total shots on the camera — from various angles, and has since won online admirers on Twitter. “Wildlife cameras help us learn what animals are out there and what they’re up to over the course of a day, a week or even year,” the Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks Department explained. “And sometimes that means taking a bunch of selfies, just like us.” (Source: Insider) Mysterious and Spooky Lisa Loring, Original Wednesday Addams, Dies at 64 The actress, born Lisa Ann DeCinces, died Saturday of complications from a stroke. Loring, the first actress to portray the morbid Addams daughter, was cast in the 1964 sitcom when she was just 5 years old, and later said she “learned to memorize before I could read.” The series ran just two seasons, but had a lasting cultural impact: Loring was praised as an inspiration for Jenna Ortega’s take on the character in the Netflix hit Wednesday. Later in her career, Loring appeared in slasher movies in the ‘80s and had a recurring role as Cricket Montgomery on As the World Turns. (Source: Hollywood Reporter) Super Storylines Philadelphia and Kansas City to Meet in Super Bowl LVII Last night, the Eagles barreled past the 49ers 31-7 while the Chiefs edged the Bengals 23-20 — setting up some notable Super Bowl firsts. When the winners face off on Feb. 12, Philly’s Jalen Hurts and K.C.’s Patrick Mahomes will be the first Black starting QB matchup in Super Bowl history. Meanwhile, as Chiefs coach Andy Reid takes on his former team, the Kelce brothers are making history as the first siblings on opposing sides: Eagles center Jason Kelce — who supported little brother Travis’ efforts with K.C. until their AFC championship win — tweeted, “Officially done being a Chiefs fan this season!!” (Sources: Yahoo Sports, ESPN, SI) |
IMPORTANT
Who’s Running the Show?
Congress Opens Amid Uncertainty About Speaker of the House
Lawmakers convene today with a new balance of power after Republicans won the House by a narrow margin. But they haven’t rallied behind Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s bid to replace Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and some speculate he’ll be the first nominee in a century to lose the vote. McCarthy’s struggle exposes deep divisions within the GOP, as Trump loyalists pull the party further right and mainstream Republicans, reeling from Trump-endorsed candidates’ midterm losses, try to move beyond his influence. “This is a lot more important than about one person,” said one former aide. “It’s about whether Republicans will be able to govern.” (Sources: AP, NYT, WaPo)
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| Striking Back Ukraine Counterattack on Russian Barracks Kills at Least 63 In a rare admission, Moscow said that 63 of its troops were killed in a New Year’s Day strike on “a temporary deployment facility” in the Russian-controlled city of Makiivka. Ukrainian forces fired six rockets using a guided missile system provided by the U.S., and two were shot down by Russian defenses. Moscow rarely releases casualty numbers and when it does the figures are typically low: It claimed just one death from a crew of hundreds after the sinking of the Moskva cruiser. Kyiv, unsurprisingly, puts the numbers higher, estimating that 400 Russian soldiers were killed and hundreds injured. (Source: The Guardian, Al Jazeera) Criminal Mind Idaho Murder Suspect to Be Extradited From Pennsylvania Bryan Kohberger, who is facing first-degree murder charges in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students, is not expected to fight extradition at a court hearing today after he was taken into custody Friday at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania. Investigators believe he broke into the students’ Moscow, Idaho, home in November “with the intent to commit murder,” though they have yet to reveal a possible motive. Kohberger is a doctoral student and teaching assistant in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University — about 10 miles from the crime scene. (Sources: AP, NPR, NYT) Island Getaway Florida National Park Closes After 300 Cuban Migrants Arrive The National Park Service reported that the remote islands of Dry Tortugas National Park, at the tip of the Florida Keys, would be closed for several days “while law enforcement & medical personnel evaluate, provide care for & coordinate transport.” Around 300 migrants have landed in the last few days. The Coast Guard has noted an increase in arrivals from Cuba during “unseasonably good weather,” and sent 80 asylum-seekers back to the island last week. More than 220,000 Cubans have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in the last year in what experts call the largest-ever exodus from the authoritarian nation. (Sources: WaPo, NBC) Briefly Here are some things you should know about today: Ugly politics. Two members of Parliament in Senegal have been sentenced to six months in prison for attacking pregnant MP Amy Ndiaye and kicking her in the stomach during a budget debate. (Source: BBC) Conflicting reports. President Joe Biden contradicted remarks by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, saying the U.S. is not discussing joint nuclear exercises with Seoul amid growing tensions with North Korea. (Source: Al Jazeera) Not welcome. France’s César Awards, the equivalent of the Oscars, will ban anyone being investigated for sexual misconduct from its ceremony in February. Protests were expected over actor Sofiane Bennacer, who is under investigation for allegations of rape and abuse. (Source: AFP) |
| INTRIGUING Hard Hit Bills Safety in Critical Condition After Cardiac Arrest on Field Monday night’s football game between the Bengals and the Bills was suspended in the first quarter when Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field after tackling Cincinnati wide receiver Tee Higgins. Medical staff administered CPR and restored Hamlin’s heartbeat before he was taken off the field by ambulance. The 24-year-old is sedated and in critical condition at a Cincinnati hospital. Hamlin had been collecting money for a toy drive with a goal of $2,500 before the game — but as of Tuesday morning it had raised over $3 million after an outpouring of support for the young player. (Sources: ESPN, USA Today) Bad Call Police Use Debunked 911 Analysis Method to Discredit Callers A ProPublica investigation into 911 call analysis — a method to identify guilt from callers’ voices and word choices — shows it’s widely used by police and prosecutors despite consensus among experts that it’s unscientific. “I know what a guilty father, mother or boyfriend sounds like,” said Tracy Harpster, author of Is The Caller the Killer? His method was even used by the FBI until its own studies debunked it. But while callers have been wrongly accused or convicted, Harpster keeps his methods secret: “The more civilians who know about it, the more who will try to get away with murder.” (Source: ProPublica) Turn Back Time Can Ditching Old Cells Reverse the Effects of Aging? Biochemist James Kirkland and molecular biologist Tamara Tchkonia of the Mayo Clinic are at the forefront of a movement to keep humans healthier for longer by targeting aging cells. These “senescent” cells, which have worn out and stopped dividing, build up as we age, releasing compounds that make tissues susceptible to illnesses like strokes, diabetes and osteoporosis. Kirkland and Tchkonia are taking aim at these toxic cells with senolytics — drugs that kill decrepit cells so that younger, healthier ones can flourish — in the hopes of extending not the lifespan, but the “health span” of humans to live disease-free. (Source: Ars Technica) Sins of the Forefathers Benedict Cumberbatch’s Family Targeted for Slavery Reparations The Emmy-winning Doctor Strange actor may be asked to hand over some of his Hollywood earnings to descendants of sugar plantation slaves in Barbados. The Caribbean nation, which rejected British rule and became a republic in 2021, has begun seeking reparations from wealthy descendants of plantation owners. Abraham Cumberbatch, Benedict’s seventh great-grandfather, made the family’s fortune in the 18th century when he owned the Cleland plantation, where he enslaved 250 Barbadians. The actor played a slave owner in 12 Years a Slave and also portrayed an abolitionist in Amazing Grace as a “sort of apology” for his family’s history. (Sources: Insider, The Daily Beast) Mistaken Identity Invitation to Masters Tournament Goes to Wrong Scott Stallings The three-time PGA Tour winner started worrying when his invitation hadn’t arrived by late December. “Honestly, I thought my wife had it and was doing something for Christmas.” But then he received an Instagram message from someone with a familiar name. “Hi Scott. My name is Scott Stallings as well and I’m from GA. My wife’s name is Jennifer too! I received a FedEx today from the Masters inviting me to play in the Masters Tournament,” he wrote. “I’m 100% sure this is NOT for me.” The golfer has since invited the other Stallings to join him at Augusta National. (Source: AP) |
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The Spark – Yahoo!
From 2005 – 2010 I worked on The Spark as a writer, editor and manager. It was a daily feature on the front page of the Yahoo! Directory (and sometimes featured on the front page of yahoo.com) that highlighted new, niche and unusual online content, hand-picked by the team of “surfers” – a.k.a. the curators and taxonomists who built the directory and sorted all the websites into browseable categories before search got good enough to find anything you were looking for. (Yes, I’m that old.) Sadly the Yahoo! Directory has been retired, and along with it The Spark. Since many of the links in posts no longer work, I’ve posted screenshots instead to show what the posts looked like at the time. You’ll have to trust me that some of the linked content was absolutely hilarious in context :-)
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michelle heimburger 