My wife and I were two of the estimated 750 million people who watched Prince Charles marry Lady Diana Spencer forty years ago yesterday. Here’s what we didn’t know: Diana accidentally spilled some perfume on her wedding dress prior to the ceremony. Her makeup artist then told her to hold that spot on her dress as she was walking to make it seem that she was lifting the front of her dress so she wouldn’t step on it. Diana also... Read more

Workers were digging a well in a man’s backyard when they came upon a 2.5 million-carat sapphire cluster. The cluster, now named the “Serendipity Sapphire,” is thirty-nine inches long and twenty-eight inches wide. It was found in Ratnapura, a city in Sri Lanka known as the “city of gems.” Ironically, it was discovered in the yard of a gem trader in the city. Experts have valued it at close to $100 million. In other news, archaeologists working in northern Saudi... Read more

Simone Biles is widely considered the greatest female gymnast of all time. When she withdrew from the team all-around competition at the Tokyo Olympics yesterday, her decision made global headlines. Now USA Gymnastics is announcing this morning that she will not participate in the individual all-around competition as well. “After further medical evaluation, Simone Biles has withdrawn from the final individual all-around competition at the Tokyo Olympic Games,” according to the statement posted on Twitter. “We wholeheartedly support Simone’s decision... Read more

Let’s start with some good news: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s daughter, Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, was added to the royal line of succession yesterday. Here’s some more good news: an asteroid the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza missed us when it flew by our planet Sunday. Here’s my guess: you find the second story a bit more relevant to your life than the first and thus the better news of the two. That’s understandable. Lilibet is now eighth... Read more

More than twenty-two thousand firefighters fought “extreme fire behavior” across the West yesterday as homes burned and thousands of residents fled fast-spreading flames. The largest fire in the US is continuing to grow this morning, one of eighty-eight large wildfires crews are battling throughout the country. Six new large fires were reported Saturday. California has seen a 257 percent increase in acres burned so far compared to 2020. A fire behavior analyst blames “the critically dry weather” for good reason:... Read more

As I am writing today’s Daily Article, the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics will begin shortly. The event starts on July 23 at 8 p.m. local time at the National Stadium in Tokyo, which will be 6 a.m. where I live in Dallas, Texas. Around five to six thousand athletes from more than two hundred countries are expected to join the parade of nations, symbolic of the Olympics’ ability to unite the world around achievement in sports. Here’s what... Read more

A top US Catholic Church official has resigned after cell phone data was used to track him on Grindr, a queer dating app, and to gay bars. Twelve women filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Liberty University, accusing the school of a pattern of mishandling cases of sexual assault and harassment. And a Southern Baptist megachurch in Florida was “shocked and devastated” to learn that a former campus pastor was recently arrested for allegedly grooming and sexually assaulting a young girl... Read more

Jeff Bezos and his fellow passengers on the spaceflight that made headlines yesterday were just that—passengers. They had no operational control of their spacecraft. Their rocket was built by Blue Origin, a company Bezos founded twenty years ago but does not lead. It has 3,500 employees, none of whom were on the flight. While Bezos and his fellow passengers had no control of the technology on which they risked their lives, at least they trusted 2021 technology. By contrast, their... Read more

If you could join Jeff Bezos on his journey into space today, would you? It’s a little late now—the launch is set for 8 a.m. CDT. Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and eighteen-year-old Oliver Daemon will be on board the New Shepard rocket traveling sixty-two miles into space. Blue Origin has tested the system with fifteen autonomous flights without passengers. Their tweet last night reported that they are “a go for launch.” Jeff says he’s not nervous,... Read more

Australian officials would like us to rebrand shark attacks as “negative encounters.” The swimmer who was bitten by a great white shark at a beach near San Francisco last month may not agree. Officials in Texas are assuring the public that the Dallas resident who has the first-ever case of monkeybox in our state is “not a reason for alarm.” The infected patient in isolation at a Dallas hospital may not agree. It is human nature to downplay threats we... Read more