• You, too, could be eligible for financial compensation. If you had a Facebook account from May 2007 to December 2022, you can apply for your share of a recent $725 million privacy lawsuit settlement. Considering how many people that applies to, you might want to start thinking now about where you can put those 2 cents... 

• "A rapid, unscheduled disassembly." We've all been there. SpaceX's uncrewed rocket Starship exploded four minutes after liftoff.
• BuzzFeed announced it's shutting down its news arm. The company's founder, Jonah Peretti, said in a memo that he overinvested in the news division because he loved their work and mission, but that their journalism "purpose-built for social media" model was not profitable. (We can attest. But watch us try anyway.)
• The Iowa State Fair lineup this year is ridiculously good. You could say… it’s Ludacris. 🥁

• Taking an Earth Day hike or bike ride on Mount Trashmore.
• Learning something new about the outdoors with Wander Women Iowa.
• Hunting! For plants. It's morel szn (true love is sharing your morel hotspots) and you're sure to find some spring ephemerals in Iowa's woodlands. Not sure what you're looking for? Well, you can tell it's Dutchman's Breeches because of the way it is... Just kidding, we're public radio, we obviously got geeky about flowers and put together a spring Iowa wildflower field guide to take on your weekend walkabout.

• The bill would let residents in rural areas capture or kill skunks, opossums or raccoons that are a nuisance.
• Dotzler voiced his support for the legislation during debate in the Senate, telling lawmakers about the critter that lay waste to his RAGBRAI team's bus, eating their food and ultimately defecating in his hat.

How High We Go In the Dark
Sequoia Nagamatsu's best-selling book and All Iowa Reads adult selection for 2023 begins in the year 2030 when thawing permafrost — the result of global warming — allows the release of a long-dormant ancient virus. The resulting pandemic spreads first among children and then mutates to affect adults as well.

• Talk of Iowa Host Charity Nebbe spoke with Nagamatsu about this work of "speculative fiction" that was written before the COVID-19 pandemic and how, due to its publishing in 2022, it will forever be linked with the pandemic.