‘Florida and Ohio, man,’ the barista at the local café said to my husband, when he asked about the tourist trade. ‘People here at least acknowledge that it’s real. But people from Florida and Ohio don’t even seem to think it’s happening.’ Having lived in both places, I believe him: I have long had a theory that the surrealism that has overtaken the political landscape in America can be traced back to the poisoned ground of Ohio Facebook.
Maria Konnikova is a journalist, professional poker player, and author of the new book The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win.
“I do think that writing and psychology are so closely interlinked. The connections between the human mind and writing are in some ways the same thing. If you’re a good writer, you have to be a good, intuitive psychologist. You have to understand people, observe them, and really figure out what makes them tick.”
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
The soul of an octopus.
13 women, a months-long trial, and a jury’s choice.
“It’s like I’m risking my life for a dollar.”
Police monitored a hundred million encrypted messages sent through Encrochat, a network used by career criminals to discuss drug deals, murders, and extortion plots.
Why did two wealthy Sri Lankan brothers become suicide bombers?
How a young talent from East London went from open-mic nights to making the most sublimely unsettling show of the year.
How a July 4th meal exposes the coronavirus risk for thousands of US food workers.
On the pioneering New Yorker cartoonist.
The debate over censorship and Section 230 is thorny, contentious, and, above all, outdated.
Reckoning with the American flag.
Clint Lorance had been in charge of his platoon for only three days when he ordered his men to kill three Afghans stopped on a dirt road. A second-degree murder conviction and pardon followed. Today, Lorance is hailed as a hero by President Trump. His troops have suffered a very different fate.
How do you write about Hollywood’s most self-referential screenwriter at a destabilizing moment in history? It takes more than one draft.
In the past dozen years, state and local judges have repeatedly escaped public accountability for misdeeds that have victimized thousands. Nine of 10 kept their jobs, a Reuters investigation found – including an Alabama judge who unlawfully jailed hundreds of poor people, many of them Black, over traffic fines.
After years of outsourcing, many essential staff work for the NHS without receiving its benefits. In one London hospital, the fight is on for a better deal.
Sean Murphy was an epic weed smoker, a devoted Tom Brady fan, and the best cat burglar that Lynn, Mass. had ever seen.
Clint Lorance had been in charge of his platoon for only three days when he ordered his men to kill three Afghans stopped on a dirt road. A second-degree murder conviction and pardon followed. Today, Lorance is hailed as a hero by President Trump. His troops have suffered a very different fate.
A high stakes drag race turns dangerous.
After Hurricane Maria, the number of women killed by their partners doubled. Survivors say the government’s misguided response has put more lives in danger.
When a group of Black mothers in Ohio were told to wait for school integration, they started marching every day in protest. They kept going for nearly 18 months.
Tessie Castillo, a journalist covering criminal justice reform, and George Wilkerson, a prisoner on death row in North Carolina, are two of the co-authors of Crimson Letters: Voices from Death Row.
“I want other people to see what I see, which is that the men on death row are human beings. They’re incredibly intelligent and insightful and they have so many redemptive qualities...I don’t think I could really convey that as well as if they get their own voice out there. So I wanted this book to be a platform for them and for their voices.” –Tessie Castillo
“For me, writing was like a form of conversation with myself or with my past, like therapy. So I just chose these periods in my life that I didn’t really understand and that were really powerful and impactful to me, and I just sat down and started writing to understand them and make peace with them.” –George Wilkerson
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
In a Los Angeles suburb where schools and parents faltered, the American Dream was replaced by drugs, neo-Nazism, and despair.
Sean Quinn was once a billionaire folk hero, but then things turned very dark in the borderlands.
The chef, who died last year, was one of San Francisco’s culinary stars in the 1990s. She created a space for the city’s queer women to thrive in the kitchen.
