For California's Wine Industry, 'the Music Has Stopped' (Newser Deep Dive)

A taste of the week's best longform stories.                          -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May 18, 2024     For California's Wine Industry, 'the Music Has Stopped' The San Francisco Chronicle is out with a bleak story about the future of the once-flourishing wine industry in California. The boom times, it appears, are over. Keep reading   He Couldn't Afford a House, So He Bought an Ambulance Sky-high housing costs in California have forced thousands of people to live out of their vehicles. In Los Angeles County alone, the official count in 2023 was about 14,000, up 9% from the previous year. Keep reading   From our sponsors The Best & Easiest Way to Get Rid of Mosquitoes at Night Don't let bugs ruin your sleep this year. With its powerful light & electric circuit, Zapify attract bugs and zaps them in their tracks with the flick of a switch. READ MORE   Only Two States Had No Road Rage Shootings Over Decade American roads are notably more dangerous than they were a decade ago in at least one respect: road rage shootings. An analysis in the Gun Violence Archive by the nonprofit Trace lays out the issue. Keep reading   Newborns in Great Plains Tribes Paying a Steep Price Syphilis cases have been on the rise in the US, as has the number of infants born with the disease. But nowhere have those two stats wrought more misery than in South Dakota— more specifically among Native Americans on reservations there. Keep reading   What It's Like to Be in Total Darkness for 82 Hours Darkness retreats made headlines last year, when NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers went on one in order to spend time contemplating his future in the league. Such retreats are nothing new—they've evolved from centuries of practices involving total darkness used by people like the Tibetan monks in the 10th century who spent time in the absence of light to "attain a state of transitional consciousness," and they're particularly popular in the Czech Republic today. Keep reading     The Internet as We Know It Depends on 22 Ships When you think of what lurks in the ocean's depths, fiber-optic cables probably don't come to mind. They should. Keep reading   Her Conviction for Killing 7 Babies Isn't as Solid as You Think Lucy Letby might be the most reviled person in all of the UK. The former nurse was convicted last year of murdering seven newborns and trying to kill six more. Keep reading   From the Archives The Organ Whose Name We Are Loathe to Speak Is a Marvel "The moment you say 'anus,' you can hear a pin drop in the room." So a jellyfish biologist at the University of North Carolina at Asheville tells Katherine Wu, who has written a fascinating piece for the Atlantic about this "evolutionary marvel" that also happens to be "the body's most embarrassing organ." Keep reading   From Our Sponsors Manage your subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe from Newser emails  |  Privacy Policy We'd love to hear from you. Send us a note at feedback@newser.com. Read our stories on MSN. Newser, LLC  |  1395 Brickell Avenue  |  Suite 800  |  Miami, Florida  |  33131 © 2024 Newser, LLC. All rights reserved