The Download: hydrogen-powered planes, and abortion pills

1 Covid is being left off death certificates in China
Medical professionals are being pressured to cite other causes of death. (FT $)
+ China’s cracking down on covid-related “gloomy sentiments.” (The Guardian)
+ There’s been a huge jump in covid hospitalizations. (Reuters)
+ The right mix of drugs could help to treat long covid. (The Atlantic $) 

2 The US Supreme Court is weighing up the future of the internet
It’s poised to reconsider if web platforms are legally liable for content. (NYT $)
+ Firms’ existing legal protections are unpopular among tech critics in both major US political parties. (FT $)

3 Google is cutting 12,000 jobs
The CEO says it wants to sharpen its focus on AI. (The Verge)
+ ChatGPT is making it nervous enough to call in the big guns. (NYT $)
+ The right—and very wrong—ways to use ChatGPT. (WP $)

4 A sophisticated ad scam attacked 11 million phones
It’s one of the biggest, most complicated schemes ever uncovered. (Wired $)

5 Twitter is being sued by the experts it hired to force Elon Musk to buy it
The consulting firm wants Twitter to cough up $2 million. (Bloomberg $)
+ Elon Musk could appear in court today in a separate legal challenge. (The Guardian) 

6 Weather forecasting has a hype problem
Weather prediction startups tend to overpromise and underdeliver. (WP $)

7 Should we think twice about studying ancient DNA?
Extracting DNA from the long-dead is an ethical quagmire. (Knowable Magazine)
+ DNA that was frozen for 2 million years has been sequenced. (MIT Technology Review)

8 It’s tough to grasp just how massive the universe really is
But Henrietta Leavitt’s work gave us a yardstick to measure it with. (Vox)
+ NASA’s return to the moon is off to a rocky start. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Make way for the podcast-hosting child prodigies
One host started his own show at just seven years old. (The Guardian)

10 Don’t let that cute dog photo fool you
Toxic ideas can be easily masked online behind animal imagery. (Slate $)

Quote of the day

“It’s the same criminals, they’re just repainting their get-away cars.”

—Bill Siegel, chief executive officer and co-founder of cyber extortion response company Coveware, reflects on how a core group of hackers is behind the vast majority of ransomware attacks, Bloomberg reports.

The big story