There are many explanations for the rise in killings in U.S. cities, including the pandemic and the choices made in response to it. In Philadelphia, the causes, the human costs — and the suffering — are particularly stark.
For 50 years, Enthusiastic Sobriety programs have promised to help teenagers kick drug and alcohol addiction. But former followers say ES doesn’t save lives—it destroys them.
China is neither a Marxist fundamentalist regime nor a universally-surveilled open-air prison, in which one is free to do nothing but worship the party and carry out its edicts. That is however the impression created by quite a bit of the media. I think that’s not the fault of individual journalists, instead more structural explanations are at work. News bureaus are highly concentrated in Beijing, due in part to natural corporate consolidation, but mostly because the government maintains a strict cap on foreign journalist visas. As a result, the bulk of journalists are based in the part of China that has the most politics and the least sense of growth. Everything here is doom and gloom, a fact well conveyed to the outside world.
A closer look at the economics of Black pop culture reveals that most Black creators (outside music) come from middle-to-upper middle class backgrounds, while the Black poor are written about but rarely get the chance to speak for themselves.
A respected professor shot dead through the mansion window. A quaint New England town shaken to its core. One all-consuming obsession in Whip City.
Pedestrianism was a sport of epic rivalries, eyewatering salaries, feverish nationalism, eccentric personalities and six-day, 450-mile walks.
The industry that fights bed bugs is growing, but the only real winners are the pests themselves.
Smell is often dismissed as the least important sense. But it’s the funk that draws us together.
For decades, poppers have been the go-to sex drug for gay men. But where do they come from?
In 1955, just past daybreak, a Chevrolet truck pulled up to an unmarked building. A 14-year-old child was in the back.
Jessica Bruder is a journalist and author of the book Nomadland.
“I don’t do a hard sell. I’ll tell people what my MO is, but I don’t push people to talk with me. I want to go deep with people. I want to be able to have the time to just sit with them and to say, ‘start at the beginning.’ Sometimes going chronologically will just take you to these places that wouldn’t have come up if I’ve just done a very guided interview. So I hung out. I’m not relentless. I don’t wear people down. But I stick around. If people just want me to fuck off, I fuck off, and I talk to other people..”
Thanks to Mailchimp and The London Review of Books for sponsoring this week's episode.
The enduring career of the megastar no one really knows.
An Australian slaughterhouse dispute shone a light on a system designed to exploit migrant workers’ hopes and ambitions.
The Michigan kidnapping case is a major test for the Biden administration’s commitment to fighting domestic terrorism—and a crucible for the fierce ideological divisions pulling the country apart.
A profile of the gymnast.
“This is what I want to say.”
In 1976, a school bus carrying 26 children and their driver disappeared from a small California town, capturing the world’s attention.
For years, Hou was the only woman who stood a chance against the very best. But she had her own ambitions.
What makes a graduate program predatory?
The death of the woman he loved was too much to bear. Could a mysterious website allow him to speak with her once more?
A profile of the overlooked icon who forever changed the way Indigenous people are depicted onscreen.
The U.S. military openly admitted to killing Somali civilians but won’t return their emails or issue reparations.
A profile of the singer-songwriter.
To understand the state’s urban-rural divide, start by looking at Yamhill County’s proposed walking trail.
America’s most fearless satirist has seen his wildest fictions become reality.
