Hello!

Greetings from Pittsburgh, the setting for parts of my just-announced book Hollywood, Ending. I've been traveling around the city with my family, visiting some of the locations I write about in the book. H,E (I haven't thought of a great abbreviation yet) is about two young people who meet in Pittsburgh while making a movie called Andy Warhol Never Gets Old. The movie, about the last year of Andy Warhol's life, gives them both occasion to see some of the extraordinary art in this city. There's a Joan Mitchell triptych painting at the Carnegie Museum of Art that I've been obsessed with for over a decade, for example, and of course the Andy Warhol Museum itself.

Hollywood, Ending (my first novel in nine years?!??!) is about art and why we make it and what we lose in the commodification of it. It's also about what happens when creative production is mediated by huge companies that need to turn a profit—whether that be a publishing house, a movie studio, or TikTok. And it's about the delicate and messy business of falling in love when the world is watching. I'm so excited for you to read it in September. In the meantime, there is the small business of finishing the final edits, which I've got to get back to.

John

You can always email us at [email protected]

This Week in Stuff

An artist shared his infinite sketch book, which you can now explore for yourself. (Instagram)
Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell recorded a message for the crew of Artemis II. (Instagram)
A student and their mom created a custom mug for the best bus driver. (Instagram)
An aspiring future astronaut in a pink spacesuit watched the Artemis II launch. (TikTok)
The 2026 Tuberculosis Hill Day gathered around 300 advocates, experts, and survivors at the U.S. Capitol to advance the fight against TB. (pih.org)

Please send us stuff you think we should feature to [email protected]

Coal power has effectively died in the United Kingdom

Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Arriagada

The United Kingdom was the birthplace of coal. It has now, effectively, died there.

As shown in the chart, in the late 1980s, around two-thirds of the UK’s electricity came from coal. By the time I was born in the 1990s, this had dropped to just over half.

The use of coal has plummeted in my lifetime. It now makes up around 0.1% of the UK’s electricity.

Coal was first replaced by gas, but is now being pushed out by wind, solar, and biomass.

Our World in Data is a UK-based non-profit organization that publishes research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems. You can find more of their data insights here. Want to receive even more Data Insights like this from Our World in Data directly in your inbox every few days? Sign up for their newsletter!

This Week at Complexly

There’s no place like Earth—and we’ve got the planet’s spectacular, one-of-a-kind geology to thank for it. In this episode of Crash Course Geology, we’ll explore how geology touches our lives, helps us solve mysteries about the planet’s past and its future, and puts our world’s life in perspective.

Is the okapi cryptozoology's greatest success story? If the locals were always just describing a giraffe relative from their backyard, was it ever a cryptid at all? Who decides that an animal is "real"?

Some Games to Play!

The Daily Spell (by Jamwitch)

SpellCheck.xyc (by Answer in Progress)

Download Gubbins on iOS or Android!

This Gubbins postcard was made by Alexis. Send yours to [email protected]

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Eye-Catching Trees

In the last We’re Here, John talked about his appreciation for trees, so we asked We’re Here readers to send us photos of trees that caught their eye. Thank you to everyone who made our inbox a forest!