The Wall Street Journal profiles a growing trend of \"love hackers\" — singles who use Excel or Google Sheets to rate their dates on up to 70 data fields after returning home, and a Cornell researcher who interviewed 42 of them and analyzed 24 spreadsheets. Also: Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence at Amherst College, published a piece in Fortune documenting two decades of watching students lose the ability to read — high school English teachers now assign an average of 2.81 books a year, down from 4 in 2008, and 32% of 12th graders now score below basic reading levels. And Kai Sato, 39, of California, set out on June 7 for a solo sail to Hawaii, had his mast snap two weeks in, ran out of gas, lost his phone signal, spent days suicidal, fashioned repairs from PVC pipes and kayak paddles, ate oatmeal and fish that landed in his boat, licked condensation from plastic bags to survive, and was rescued 33 days later by a cargo ship. He's already planning his next voyage. Plus the Chicago scream club, flight attendants falling mysteriously ill, Gunther von Hagens requesting to be plastinated, and the vending machine burrito recall.
","author_name":"Keith Conrad"}