Killer asteroids, a 'Hamilton' reunion and a far-out French Open: The week in review
Asteroids aim for the moon, too
We worry a lot about an asteroid striking Earth, but we don't seem to hear much about the fate of our closest cosmic neighbor. Data from the James Webb Space Telescope indicates there's a 4.3% chance the asteroid known as 2024 YR4 could strike the moon in 2032, NASA said. For context: Just a 3.1% chance that YR4 would hit Earth was considered historically high and sent astronomers scrambling before they took a closer look and ruled out the threat. Why the worry? YR4 is about the size of a 10-story building and, in an alarming bit of astronomical parlance, is considered a "city killer."
RFK Jr. blows up vaccine panel
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has shaken up the nation’s vaccine guidance again. The Health and Human Services secretary fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, which advises the federal government on vaccine safety, and two days later announced eight new members. Opponents warned the firings would stoke further public distrust, but Kennedy maintained that “a clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science” and declared that the new panel would “no longer function as a rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas.” All 17 sitting committee members had been appointed by the Biden administration.
A pox on your credit card balance
It turns out even people who earn good money are embarrassed about their credit card debt. About two-fifths of Americans with credit card debt overall have lied about how much they owe, a LendingTree survey found, but for people who earn more than $100,000 a year, the share of fibbers rises to half. (For 28% of credit card consumers, silence was the preferred response, and most of those were women.) “People don’t expect people who earn a lot of money to have a lot of credit card debt,” LendingTree’s Matt Schulz said. “And the truth is that having a lot of money doesn’t mean you’re good at managing it.”
All hail ‘Hamilton’ and ‘Happy Ending’
Fans were treated to a “Hamilton” homecoming at the 78th Tony Awards as more than two dozen members of the original cast took the stage at New York’s Radio City Music Hall to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the blockbuster production that reimagined the story of America. Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr., Jonathan Groff, Daveed Diggs and company brought the crowd to its feet in a performance-medley salute to the breakout show that captured 11 Tonys in 2016. As for the 2025 Tonys, the night belonged to the romantic robot dramedy “Maybe Happy Ending,” which captured six awards, including best musical.
French Open finals were two for the ages
Coco Gauff, 21, became the first American woman to win the French Open since Serena Williams in 2015 when she stormed back to knock off No. 1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus in a 6-7, 6-2, 6-4 barnburner marked by high drama, high winds and a flurry of unforced errors. The men’s final, not to be outdone, saw Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, 22, stun top-ranked Jannik Sinner of Italy 4-6, 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (10-2) in an epic 5 hours and 29 minutes, the longest men’s singles final in French Open history. − Compiled and written by Robert Abitbol, Paste BN copy chief