How the Bronx Came Back (But Didn't Bring Everyone Along)

The borough that once symbolized urban decline is now safer than ever, and perhaps even gentrifying—but most Bronxites' lives are still precarious and mired in poverty.

Published: Oct. 15, 2015
Length: 18 minutes (4661 words)
Manhunting in the Hindu Kush

The Intercept examines secret documents on drone strikes. "During a five-month stretch of the campaign, nearly nine out of 10 people who died in airstrikes were not the Americans’ direct targets. By February 2013, Haymaker airstrikes had resulted in no more than 35 'jackpots,' a term used to signal the neutralization of a specific targeted individual, while more than 200 people were declared EKIA — 'enemy killed in action.'"

Published: Oct. 15, 2015
Length: 20 minutes (5230 words)
The Confessions of @dick_nixon

An essay about a father-son relationship, character, and how a Yale-trained playwright came to impersonate Richard Nixon on Twitter.

Source: Vox
Published: Oct. 8, 2015
Length: 12 minutes (3140 words)
Hot Startup Theranos Has Struggled With Its Blood-Test Technology

The Silicon Valley company, led by Elizabeth Holmes, is valued at $9 billion but is running into questions about its technology.

Published: Oct. 15, 2015
Length: 11 minutes (2790 words)
I Would Rather Be Herod’s Pig: The History of a Taboo

The story of how pigs became the world’s most divisive meal. An excerpt from Mark Essig's book, Lesser Beasts.

Author: Mark Essig
Source: Longreads
Published: Oct. 14, 2015
Length: 21 minutes (5293 words)
Berkeley Breathed on the Return of 'Bloom County' After 25 Years

An NPR Fresh Air interview with the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist on reviving his comic strip on Facebook, and how social media has changed his relationship with fans.

Author: Sam Briger
Source: NPR
Published: Oct. 14, 2015
Length: 13 minutes (3386 words)
The Story Behind the Wesleyan Molly Bust

Earlier this spring, a bad batch of Molly caused a dozen students at Wesleyan University to be hospitalized. Greenhouse reconstructs the events of that night and the subsequent drug busts while also asking a larger question: just how liberal can a liberal arts college be?

Published: Oct. 9, 2015
Length: 25 minutes (6460 words)
Inside an FBI Hostage Crisis

A cavalcade of law enforcement tries to come up with a hostage rescue plan after an angry loner kidnaps a young boy.

Published: Oct. 9, 2015
Length: 29 minutes (7361 words)
From Jamaica to Minnesota to Myself

A personal essay by Marlon James, published by The New York Times earlier this year. James has just won the 2015 Man Booker Prize for his novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings.

Author: Marlon James
Published: Oct. 13, 2015
Length: 8 minutes (2181 words)
Pond Scum

Kathryn Schulz takes down Henry David Thoreau: "It is true that Thoreau was an excellent naturalist and an eloquent and prescient voice for the preservation of wild places. But 'Walden' is less a cornerstone work of environmental literature than the original cabin porn: a fantasy about rustic life divorced from the reality of living in the woods, and, especially, a fantasy about escaping the entanglements and responsibilities of living among other people."

Published: Oct. 13, 2015
Length: 22 minutes (5660 words)
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