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Sparks

It Sure Looks Like a Rivian Was Too Much Truck for Alan Ruck​

At least it wasn’t a Ferrari this time?

Alan Ruck and a Rivian.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Rivian

It is just as the prophets (John Hughes) of old (1986) foretold.

On Tuesday, actor Alan Ruck allegedly crashed his Rivian into a Los Angeles pizza shop, an accident that drew immediate comparisons to the famous scene in which he “kills” his father’s Ferrari in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Just like Cameron Frye, Ruck was reportedly a class act after the scary incident and “appeared more concerned about the well-being of others than his own,” one witness told the Los Angeles Times. (Though to be fair, even a Rivian is less expensive than a fake 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder).

Ruck — who admittedly might be more famous these days for playing Connor Roy on Succession — was seen to be unharmed after he emerged from the wreck. No pedestrians were reportedly injured in the crash, though the Los Angeles Fire Department said one person involved was hospitalized with a minor, non-life-threatening injury.

It’s not clear exactly what happened in the incident. Footage that circulated afterward shows a Rivian stopped at a traffic light at La Brea Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard before it suddenly careened forward, hitting two other cars in the intersection before it rammed through the pizzeria’s wall. No one was arrested for driving under the influence after the crash, police told the L.A. Times.

Video shows Hollywood crash involving 'Ferris Bueller,' 'Succession' star Alan Ruckwww.youtube.com

Get-uppy Rivian RT1s like Rusk’s can accelerate from zero to 60 mph in three seconds (basically what a modern Ferrari manages), making it the world’s fastest pickup truck. But when your truck weighs more than 7,100 pounds, an accidental tap of the accelerator — if that’s indeed what happened, though there are no indications one way or another — can have serious consequences.

Though Ruck doesn’t have the inglorious distinction of being the first person to crash a Rivian — that belongs to a driver who hit a parked Mercedes just one week after the first production trucks left the assembly line — he does have another new claim to fame: Being the biggest climate story to be published by TMZ since the tabloid called Olivia Wilde a hypocrite for globetrotting with Harry Styles in October.

Yellow

Jeva Lange

Jeva is a founding staff writer at Heatmap. Her writing has also appeared in The Week, where she formerly served as executive editor and culture critic, as well as in The New York Daily News, Vice, and Gothamist, among others. Jeva lives in New York City. Read More

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Sparks

Coral Bleaching Is a $9 Trillion Problem

A new report forecasts a future where reefs go over a “tipping point.”

A coral reef in color and black and white.
Heatmap illustration/Getty Images

Coral reefs are a thing of wonder, both organism and underwater infrastructure that houses thousands of species of fish. They are also, as you might already know, in grave danger. Climate change is contributing to massive waves of coral bleaching around the world, from the Great Barrier Reef to the ocean off of Florida, where an extreme oceanic heat wave this year turned mile after mile of reef a ghostly white.

We’ve known about coral bleaching for years, but a new report out Wednesday draws fresh attention to corals’ plight, including reefs — along with ice sheets, rainforests, and ocean currents, among others — on a list of imminent climate “tipping points.” And if they go over the brink, the consequences could reach far beyond the ocean floor.

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