You may respond by saying you don’t have the time.

And that’s the problem.

You’ve got to take the time!

Maybe, if you are driving somewhere, you won’t accept calls.

I also think the distraction of a phone call while driving can affect your safety.

Do you take time to pray?

A simple exercise program is another way to take care of you.

You deserve time to yourself.

If not today, when?

In California, a place famous around the world for its viticulture, winemakers produced less wine last year than at any point in the last quarter century.

It’s often cheaper to let grapes rot on the vine than to harvest them because so many unsold bottles clog the shelves of storerooms and wine shops.

So on a sunny morning in Soledad, Calif., in a valley made famous by the author John Steinbeck, Jason Smith acquiesced to simple economics.

A worker unceremoniously drove a tractor and ripped out Mr. Smith’s pinot noir grapes from the ground.

Another set fire to the wooden posts that for years had propped up the vines.

And Mr. Smith leaned against his white Suburban, under the shade of a coastal oak, watching one of his pinot vineyards go up in smoke. (NYT)

Another huge industry faces a shrinking customer base.

As an electrician in training in Detroit, Tyler Shelton spends most of his days popping down manholes to fix cables and other electrical gear.

But lately, his company has sent many of its workers to a sprawling data center that just broke ground about an hour away.

“Everybody wants that money,” Mr. Shelton, 29, said during lunch break at his apprenticeship’s twice-a-month classroom day.

“We have work to do, but we’re also losing a good chunk of manpower to these data centers.”

Soon, he could join them: OpenAI’s project in Saline Township is the biggest single investment in Michigan’s history, according to the state, requiring hundreds of electricians working 10-hour days, seven days a week.

Despite the overtime bonanza, Mr. Shelton has mixed feelings. (NYT)

There are plenty of things you can lease: a car, an apartment or an office space, for example.

Now you can add your next iPhone to that list!

Apple is launching a new leasing program to make iPhones, Macs and other products feel more affordable at a time when electronics prices are climbing and consumers are holding onto devices longer.

Apple is partnering with payment platform Klarna on the program, which will be available in the United States starting Tuesday through retail locations, online and in the Apple Store app.

iPhones and Apple Watches can be leased on either a 12- or 24-month basis, while Macs and iPads will have a 24- or 36-month lease term. (CNN)

Good news for all those who can’t afford to buy one!

The United States has now recorded more cases of measles in 2026 than in any other year since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000.

This is aa grim sign that the country may be headed toward a new era in which the disease regularly sickens thousands every year.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that there have been 2,318 confirmed cases of measles so far this year.

The case count toppled the record set last year, when measles infected more than 2,200 Americans and killed two unvaccinated children.

More measles cases have been reported in the United States in the last two years than in all the years from 2000 through 2024 combined. (NYT)

• Neither rolling nor folding is definitively superior for saving space, as rolled clothes tend to have a larger footprint while folded clothes take up more vertical space.
• For quick packing and fewer wrinkles, folding is recommended.
• Rolling allows you to see all your garments at a glance, making it easier to find items without disturbing others.
• We suggest rolling softer, less bulky garments like underwear and t-shirts, and folding stiffer items such as dress shirts, khakis, and skirts.
• The “ranger roll” method, a military technique, can save more space than standard rolling, especially for lightweight clothes in tight spaces like a backpack, though it can be more time-consuming and may cause more wrinkles. (NYT)

This summer has seen ferocious wildfires tearing across southern Europe.

More than 240,000 acres of land have already been destroyed across Spain, with a recent blaze in the south quickly turning into one the country’s deadliest.

Preventing wildfires has become a high-tech endeavor of satellites, drones and AI systems. But 80 miles south of Barcelona, an ancient solution is quietly roaming across the mountain.

It’s a herd of donkeys.

Tivissa Donkey Firefighters, a nonprofit in southern Catalonia, rehabilitates mistreated and abandoned donkeys and puts them to work as “firefighters.”

By grazing the most flammable grasses in mountains and rural areas, they carve natural firebreaks across the dry Mediterranean landscape. (CNN)

So much for techknowledgy!

OpenAI says some of its experimental AI models left a test environment with no human direction and hacked its way onto a different company’s real production systems while trying to “cheat” on a cybersecurity test.

It’s one of the first publicly disclosed examples of an AI system autonomously breaching its testing environment and reaching a real external system – the “agentic attacker” scenario the AI and cybersecurity industry has been warning will happen.

It’s like an engineered virus escaping a biocontainment lab and turning up inside a neighboring facility’s systems.

“We consider this incident to be an unprecedented cyber incident, involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities, and are responding accordingly,” OpenAI said in a statement on Tuesday.

“We are sharing preliminary findings at this stage to help defenders understand what happened and to help calibrate on what models are now capable of.” (CNN)

We always knew AI is dangerous. Here is a specific example.

A very unusual question!

How many of us awaken with the goal of making something better?

My first suggestion deals with relationships.

Surely, we can make a relationship better.

It may be a troubled one or a solid one that can still be improved.

How about your physical health?

This is often neglected by living with too much stress.

Stress can be managed by committing yourself to regular exercise.

How about improving your faith life?

Prayer and acts of kindness will improve your life.

Of course, there are many other types of improvement we can accomplish.

Which will you do today?

Just beyond the edges of one of the largest cities on the planet, a stretch of ancient rainforest and coastline lies mostly unknown to international travelers.

The roughly 370 miles of São Paulo state’s pristine, mountainous coastline is nestled beneath the canopy of the Atlantic Forest.

It is the second most biodiverse region in the Americas, after the Amazon.

Greater São Paulo holds more than 21 million people, with the wider urban sprawl pushing past 30 million.

Yet a two- to three-hour drive from this megacity in Brazil delivers tumbling waterfalls, deserted beaches and welcoming fishing villages.

It is where the pace of life is still dictated by the moon and the tides. (CNN)

Sounds like one of a kind!