Tilda Swinton Is in a World of Her Own
On the actress’s stellar year.
Spectacle
On the 1934 lynching of Claude Neal, and the Florida town that kept the identity of those responsible a secret.
The Golden Quarter
Why the boom in scientific progress stalled.
Can a Better Football Helmet Save Your Kid’s Brain?
The flawed data on safety equipment.
Katie J.M. Baker is a reporter for BuzzFeed News.
“I went to Steubenville a year after the sexual assault to cover their first big football game of the season and I was face-to-face with these people who I had been writing about without knowing much about them. From far away it seems like, do these details matter? Do we care if these people’s lives get messed up when the narrative is so strong, when Steubenville now stands for more awareness around rape culture? But when you’re there, of course it matters. After that piece I realized I didn’t want to blog anymore and I wanted to just focus on reporting.”
Thanks to Casper, Scribd, and TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode.
The Bitcoin Boy
On a 16-year-old Silicon Valley wunderkind.
Iraq: The New War
A 2003 essay that foreshadows the emergence of the Islamic State a decade later – an insurgency incited by American policy in Iraq during the early days of the war.
The Weight of Guilt
Inside the world of bass fishing cheaters.
The Wanderers
Why do people with dementia become lost?
The Limits of Jurisdiction
Kidnapping and international adoption.
I Was a Greek Neo-Fascist
Inside Greece’s far-right movement.
Chris Rock Talks to Frank Rich
On Ferguson, Cosby, and what ‘racial progress’ really means.
Money ≠ Happiness. QED.
The old axiom that more is better is no longer true.
The Ride of Their Lives
Rodeo bulls and the boys who ride them.
This Week's Most Popular Articles in the Longform App
A husband who spent millions failing to kill his wife, the nightmare of working for RadioShack and how an East German quantum chemist became the world’s most powerful woman — the most read articles this week in the Longform App, available free for iPhone and iPad.
"I Love Getting Into as Much Weird Shit as Possible"
An interview with Stevie Wonder.
Heroin Takes Over a House, and a Mom
Laurie Sperring’s Staten Island nightmare.
My Vassar College Faculty ID Makes Everything OK
“My Vassar College Faculty ID affords me free smoothies, free printing paper, paid leave, and access to one of the most beautiful libraries on Earth. It guarantees that I have really good health care and more disposable income than anyone in my Mississippi family. But way more than I want to admit, I’m wondering what price we pay for these kinds of ID’s, and what that price has to do with the extrajudicial disciplining and killing of young black human beings.”
The Other Side of a Miracle
Life, death, and last year’s Auburn-Alabama game.
The Jihad Cult: Why Young Germans Are Answering Call to Holy War
More than 500 Germans, including a former rapper named Deso Dogg, have joined ISIS in Syria.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "The God of the Living Room"
Newly sober, a man considers faith in its various forms.
How Not to Get Away With Murder
Nancy and Frank Howard were happily married for three decades. Then he fell in love with another woman, embezzled $30 million, and hired a parade of inept hit men to kill his wife.
My Life In The Locker Room: A Female Sportswriter Remembers The Dicks
“I was in the visiting clubhouse waiting to interview one of the Oakland A’s this year when one of the players called, ‘Here, pussy’—as though he were calling a cat. But of course, he hadn’t lost Fluffy; he’d found a woman in his locker room.”
The Mine Disaster That Shook Turkey
A mine fire in May killed 301 men, making it the worst industrial disaster in Turkish history. This is the story of two men who lived through it.
Love in Exile
The Tiwonge Chimbalanga, a transgender woman who was imprisoned four years ago in Malawi for getting engaged to a man. Pardoned and freed, she now scrapes by living in exile in South Africa.
