Your weekend long reads 🗞️
Good morning, friends of The Short List! It's John, and if you're like me, you're still exhausted from all the surprising news this week. Consider:
►Southwest Airlines melted down, then scrambled to restore goodwill.
►Oakland Raiders head coach Jon Gruden resigned over homophobic and misogynistic emails.
►Social Security recipients are getting the biggest cost-of-living bump in almost 40 years. Meanwhile, more Americans are quitting their jobs than ever.
►"Star Trek" legend William Shatner, 90, become the oldest person to go to space and was suitably emotional afterward.
That's enough to keep any news junkie occupied, so you are excused if you did not see every bit of the great work from the USA TODAY Network. ICYMI, here are some stories are well worth your time:
►Even before developers of the doomed Champlain Towers condominiums in Surfside, Florida, sold off the units to their first owners 40 years ago, the construction had been botched and the building had been set on a course to rot from the foundation up. And early condo sales exhibit signs of a money laundering scheme – which often goes hand-in-hand with cutting corners on construction, experts say.
►You've heard about ransomware, or cyberattacks aimed at extracting cash. Now the nation's top homeland security official is worried about an even greater danger: killware, or cyberattacks that can literally end lives. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warns that hackers are targeting the nations' critical infrastructure – hospitals, water supplies, and other facilities – in ways that could injure or kill people.
►Millennials have been the butt of endless jokes over the last decade, but they're getting the last laugh in the nation's housing market. These adults – those born between 1981 and 1998 – are the largest group of homebuyers today, making up 37% of the overall share. Not only that, most of them are repeat customers. USA TODAY's Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy takes a look at what millennials are buying, and how they are coming up with the cash to do it.
►CNN's Anderson Cooper, who welcomed son Wyatt Morgan via surrogate in April 2020, says he won't leave Wyatt an inheritance. "I'll go with what my parents said … 'College will be paid for, and then you got to get on it,'" he said in a recent interview. And Cooper is not alone: Ashton Kutcher, Marie Osmond, Simon Cowell and other celebrities also say they won't pass on their vast fortunes, arguing it can be harmful rather than helpful.
There are more terrific reads below. Have a great weekend!