My favorite genre of journalism: other countries’ journalists writing about the US the same way the US writes about their countries. I’m just sad they didn’t dredge up some “America expert” who’s never been to the US and doesn’t speak English to call for mass balkanization of the country followed by conspiracy theory screeds for the extra flavor.
The curvature of spacetime does wild shit to how you would expect physics to work. If you want to fall into a gravity well, you have to slow down or you’ll just slingshot past it.