January 2016 and December 2015

A round-up of some of the best things that happened in the last two months

Published in

The Medium Blog

2 min readFeb 7, 2016

Both The Daily Show and Full Frontal With Samantha Bee took aim at current events: Mark Zuckerberg’s new baby, Donald Trump, the Oregon standoff, El Chapo, Republican debates.
Oscar-nominated director of What Happened, Miss Simone? Liz Garbus and executive producer of Veep Stephanie Laing both wrote about being a woman in Hollywood.
Funny or Die published Pigeon Man’s first comic.

It was a busy January, with President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address and Donald Rumsfeld’s announcement of his new app, among other stories. Politico reported on how candidates, politicians, and government officials are using Medium.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai extolled inclusive values.
In car news, head of Google’s self-driving car program Chris Urmson provided an update on the project, and cofounder and CEO of Sidecar Sunil Paul announced the company’s closure.
Twitter’s Katie Jacobs Stanton explained why it was time for her to move on.
Dov Charney made a statement about American Apparel’s bankruptcy.
Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley and CEO Jeff Glueck announced the company’s new round of funding and leadership changes.
Computer scientist and entrepreneur Stephen Wolfram celebrated computing pioneers Ada Lovelace and Marvin Minsky.
Noah Swartz (swartzcr) remembered his brother, Aaron, on the three-year anniversary of Aaron’s death.
Asset manager Eric Jackson shared his views on Yahoo.
sweetgreen set up shop.

Hope Solo celebrated Abby Wambach on the latter’s retirement from women’s soccer, while retired quarterback Joey Harrington remembered his career.
LA Laker Larry Nance, Jr. wrote about the expectations of being an NBA legacy, and Elton Brand explained why he signed with the Philadelphia 76ers.
On the business side, multi-team owner Ted Leonsis made 10 predictions for 2016, and Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadivé shared his vision for a new colosseum.

Serial announced its return with a note from Sarah Koenig.
Reporter Diana Alvear, who covered the murder of Theresa Halbach, wrote about what she felt Netflix’s Making a Murderer missed.
Awl cofounder Choire Sicha is taking a step back. Also, Awl network publication The Billfold migrated entirely to Medium.

New York Times Kabul bureau chief Rod Nordland decried the asylum policies of the West that have prevented an Afghan couple from finding safety (the subject of his new book), to which his fellow Times journalist Alissa Johannsen Rubin responded.
Jon Krakauer described the fundamentalist views underpinning the Oregon standoff in an excerpt from Under the Banner of Heaven.
Christopher Buckley catalogued five relics in New York that inspired his new novel.

In Medium publication news, Matter became the first-ever digital publication to win the National Magazine Award for Reporting.

Check out the 100 most-recommended stories of January and some of our favorite stories from 2015.