Author: Michael Martinez

When the main chair is empty, a certain kind of silence descends upon a broadcast set. On the evening of January 10, 2022, when Georgia and Alabama were playing for the College Football Playoff National Championship, fans anticipating Scott Van Pelt to host the postgame SportsCenter were taken aback by an announcement that halted many viewers in the middle of scrolling. SVP was not going to show up. He claimed on Twitter that his heart had become “a little out of whack.” That statement, which is informal and almost self-deprecating, is so quintessential Van Pelt that it nearly made what…

The phrase “sudden illness” next to the name of someone you’ve been secretly concerned about for years has a subtly unsettling quality. That phrase appearing on a Saturday night in early September was enough to send social media into a mild panic for Barbara Eden fans, of whom there are still millions across generations. The 95-year-old actress, who is best known for playing the bottle-dwelling Jeannie, was supposed to make an appearance at the Cinecon 62 Classic Film Festival in West Los Angeles. She had been sincerely anticipating receiving the Cinecon Legacy Award. Hours before the event, she announced that…

This summer, something changed in Tampa Bay, but it didn’t happen all at once. It began slowly, with a period of dry weather before the rains began to fall nearly every afternoon, as they do in Florida when the season becomes severe and unrelenting. Water that has accumulated in gutters and abandoned flower pots. Dengue cases started to be reported by communities that had never experienced one. Even seasoned public health observers were taken aback by how the outbreak had developed by the time the Florida Department of Health began to formally issue alerts. There were 73 locally acquired dengue…

The way Pamela Anderson’s life fell apart is almost unbearably ironic. A single shared tattoo needle was subtly laying the groundwork for years of personal suffering at the height of her fame—the red swimsuit, the sun-bleached hair, the most downloaded image on the early internet. It’s the kind of detail that seems too dramatic to be true. However, it was. During their tumultuous marriage in the mid-1990s, Anderson publicly stated—and reiterated this past Sunday at the amfAR Gala Venezia in Venice—that she got hepatitis C by sharing a tattoo needle with her then-husband, Tommy Lee, the drummer for Mötley Crüe.…

A birthday cake left unattended in a care facility hallway is incredibly unsettling. It’s not because of what it stands for on its own, but rather because of what someone decided to say about it. It turned out to be a window into something much darker about how one nurse at a care facility in Gloucestershire treated the residents under her supervision. The moment was small, domestic, and nearly forgotten. This week, Rossitsa Petkova, a registered nurse who spent more than ten years working at Castleford House Nursing Home in Tutshill, was removed from the professional register after eight accusations…

The picture of a mother looking through pictures of red spots on her daughter’s cheeks, posting them in a church group chat, and waiting for advice that never involves a doctor is subtly heartbreaking. Hilda Smucker, a 44-year-old Mennonite woman in Lancaster County, experienced this during the summer when three of her unvaccinated children contracted measles. Her congregation advised her to stay hydrated, drink chamomile tea, and take vitamin A. The biggest measles outbreak currently occurring in the US is centered in Lancaster County. According to official statistics, there are 246 confirmed cases in the county, which is roughly half…

Finding a tropical mosquito breeding in someone’s East London backyard has a subtly unsettling quality. It’s not particularly frightening, but it’s the kind of thing that causes you to stop and reevaluate long-held beliefs. With its gloomy skies and consistently wet autumns, Britain has always seemed like the kind of place where tropical insects don’t live long enough to be significant. It turns out that this assumption merits further investigation. Aedes aegypti, a species typically found in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia, has been found breeding at residential properties in east London, the UK…

The majority of people learned about Courtney Budzyn from a golden retriever who had a knack for appearing incredibly unimpressed. With his half-lidded, drooping eyes and his “Linda” expressions, Tucker quickly rose to prominence as one of the most adored dogs on the internet. However, behind every video of that enormous, absurd, happy dog was a woman who had been quietly battling issues unrelated to viral fame for years. Courtney has been candid about the intensity of her depression and anxiety, albeit in bits and pieces and on various platforms. Not the stylish, somewhat relatable type that receives favorable attention…