Jan. 14: Adam Logan ’95 Wins the World Scrabble Championship

Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp ’89 outlined ways to get more young people into public service-oriented jobs early in their careers, to counter the rising number entering corporate and tech fields. — The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Wendy and Eric Schmidt ’76’s philanthropic arm Schmidt Sciences unveiled a plan for four new telescopes, including one destined for orbit, meant to rival the capabilities of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. — The New York Times

Canadian mathematician Adam Logan ’95 won the World Scrabble Championships for a second time; the first was in 2005. — CP24

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell ’75 released a video statement responding to President Trump’s threat to indict him, saying Trump is doing it because the fed has been “setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.” — The Atlantic

Discussing the Minnesota ICE shooting, University of Chicago law professor Sharon Fairley ’82 said most police departments prohibit officers from shooting into cars except in extreme circumstances, because if the driver is shot, “then you have a motor vehicle, a two-ton vehicle that’s not being directed.” — KARE 11

The new book Capturing Kahanamoku details the intersection of eugenics work by Henry Fairfield Osborn 1877, then director the American Museum of Natural History, and American surfer culture. — The New York Times

Michelle Lerner ’93’s first novel, Ring, was longlisted for the 2026 Aspen Words Literary Prize. PAW wrote about Lerner’s path to becoming a writer in 2025. — Aspen Institute

Danielle Allen ’16 is among the frustrated singles letting family members run their online dating profiles, saying she sees the experience mostly as entertainment. — The Wall Street Journal

New Yorker writer Calvin Tomkins ’47 kept a journal of the year he turned 100 — same age as the magazine — and published some entries. — The New Yorker

Former Princeton athletic director Mollie Marcoux Samaan ’91 is leaving the LPGA to run US Squash as chief executive officer. — US Squash

Council on Foreign Relations President Michael Froman ’85 discussed the U.S. arrest of Venezuela’s president, noting that many people expected President Trump to be isolationist, but “he is clearly not an isolationist.” — NPR

Retired Gen. David Petraeus *85 *87 said in Venezuela the U.S. should look to lessons from past efforts to run foreign countries, including Afghanistan where “we needed to run a country that we didn’t sufficiently understand.” — CNN

Historian Barbara Krauthamer *00 stepped down as dean of the Emory College of Arts and Sciences on Jan. 2, citing personal reasons, and will continue as a faculty member. — The Emory Wheel

Author Sarah Beth Durst ’96’s upcoming Sea of Charms, the third book in her “Spellshop” series, is on a New York Times list of “novels everyone will be talking about in 2026.” — The New York Times

Claire Thompson ’20 and Sarah Fillier ’24 were named to the Canadian Olympic women’s hockey team; both were on Canada’s gold-medal-winning team in 2022. — The Athletic

Former Princeton running back Charlie Volker ’19 announced his medical retirement due to a concussion ahead of the upcoming Winter Olympics, meaning he won’t reprise his 2022 participation on the U.S. bobsled team. — The Associated Press

Actress Irene Sofia Lucio ’08 discussed the reaction she’s seen to the feminist Broadway play she’s been in, Liberation, and why she left Princeton feeling a strong pull toward acting.  — TheaterMania.com

“Just to put it in perspective, in 1776, like 99.9% of the human population in Minnesota was Indigenous. So if you’re going to write a history about what was going on in 1776, it’s mainly an Indigenous history.”

— Anton Treuer ’91, an author and professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, quoted in Red Lake Nation News.

Actor Jarrod Spector ’03 is currently playing King George III in Hamilton on Broadway. — Playbill

CBS medical news contributor Celine Gounder ’97 is among the health leaders continuing to recommend childhood vaccines despite changes by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. — CBS 58 Milwaukee

Jodi Picoult ’87’s novel about a school shooting, Nineteen Minutes, has now been banned in all Utah schools, along with 21 others including the novel that inspired the Wicked movies. — KUER

At a local library, Cape Henlopen High School English teacher Michael Kardos ’92 discussed his fourth novel, Fun City Heist, and his writing process. — Cape Gazette

Alyssa Loh ’12, Peter Schmidt ’20, and Princeton professor D. Graham Burnett ’93 with the Friends of Attention penned an op-ed calling for an effort to fight “the forces that frack human beings in order to extract the financial value of their attention.” — The New York Times

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