10 Weekend Reads from Camp Kotok

• The reintroduction of Kamala Harris. If you had predicted this scene a month ago to anyone watching the race, they would never have believed you. But Harris has achieved the fastest vibrational shift in modern political history. A contest that revolved around the cognitive decline of a geriatric president has been transformed: Joe Biden is out, Harris is in, and a second Donald Trump presidency no longer seems inevitable. (Time)

• The former banker behind Japan’s $1.7 trillion rally says it’s just getting started: The head of Japan Exchange Group is credited with turning Tokyo into one of the world’s best-performing stock markets. (Bloomberg)

• Inside ‘Billionaires’ Bluff’: Why Paradise Cove continues to attract the super-rich: Residents of this Malibu enclave include Marc Andreessen, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Beyoncé and Jay-Z. (Wall Street Journal)

• Who are fossils for? When a stegosaurus skeleton broke the dinosaur sales record last month, selling for $45 million, it reignited an ancient debate. (Histle)

• If Betelgeuse explodes, how bright will it be? This supergiant star is in our celestial neighborhood and is threatening to go supernova. What would it look like from down here? (via cable)

• Holy Grail Cars? Get them while they last. There are only a few that are considered the pinnacle of the collector world. The McLaren F1 may be the last of them. (New York Times)

• The Webb Telescope further deepens cosmology’s greatest controversy: A long-awaited study of the cosmic expansion rate suggests that when it comes to the Hubble tension, cosmologists are still missing something. (Quanta Magazine) see also New data from the Webb Telescope suggests that our model of the universe may hold up after all: UChicago-led analysis measures universe’s expansion rate, finds ‘Hubble tension’ may not exist (University of Chicago)

• Sydney McLaughlin’s Spirit Realm: The 400m hurdles world record holder is on the brink of Olympic glory again. To get there, he had to find transcendence – both on and off the track. (the buzzer)

• Frank Zappa’s children are still grappling with his legacy—and each other: Like their father’s weird rock songs, their family defied description. His music and their pain endured. (Washington Post)

• “Serenity Now!” How ‘Seinfeld Night’ Became a New York Summer Tradition. It’s a night that combines the craziness of “Seinfeld,” a Coney Island freak show and a low-level minor league baseball team with nothing to lose. (New York Times)