Taiwan On: NYT: “The Biden administration has grown increasingly anxious this summer about China’s statements and actions regarding Taiwan, with some officials fearing that Chinese leaders might try to move against the self-governing island over the next year and a half — perhaps by trying to cut off access to all or part of the Taiwan Strait, through which U.S. naval ships regularly pass. The internal worries have sharpened in recent days, as the administration quietly works to try to dissuade House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from going through with a proposed visit to Taiwan next month.” (No one is watching the Ukraine invasion closer than China, and the US is watching China more closely than any other country.)

+ We Need Some Space: “Russia says it will withdraw from the International Space Station after 2024 and build its own station instead.
The US and Russia, along with other partners, have successfully worked together on the ISS since 1998.” (Putin should stick with the space station and withdraw from Earth.)

+ Space Jam: Scientists want to “measure how Earth’s rotation drags the fabric of space-time around itself — an effect of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.” So they’re doing exactly what you’d expect: Shooting a giant disco-ball into space.

+ Alberta Spruce: “Pope Francis issued a historic apology Monday for the Catholic Church’s cooperation with Canada’s ‘catastrophic’ policy of Indigenous residential schools, saying the forced assimilation of Native peoples into Christian society destroyed their cultures, severed families and marginalized generations.” Uh, is there anything else you guys might want to apologize for…

+ Bytedancing With the Stars: Today, almost 40K Tik Tok users have more than a million followers. That’s more than YouTube and Instagram. That helps explain why Instagram is starting to a look a lot like Tik Tok. The trend caused a user backlash. Then that backlash included the Kardashians.