The first line of Rania Abouzeid’s story “The Jihad Next Door” could be the opener of a literary spy novel. “The eight men, beards trimmed, explosive belts fastened, pistols and grenades concealed in their clothing, waited until nightfall before … Read more
Anna Mae McNeil stares past the camera, the smudge of an old bruise under her right eye. The words “New Castle, Pa., No. 220” are written in white ink below her face. It is Feb. 5, 1933, and Anna … Read more
In today’s world of impossibly speeded-up journalism, with Twitter bursts its high-velocity symbol, a small group of renegades has resolutely slammed on the brakes to practice what it calls “slow journalism.” “Anyone can photograph a sunset in a … Read more
To the FBI, he was one of the most dangerous revolutionaries in the United States. To his supporters in the Puerto Rican independence movement, he was a freedom fighter. An important part of the mission of Latino USA is … Read more
“Life in Obamacare’s Dead Zone,” Inara Verzemnieks’ story about the health insurance coverage gap, came out in the New York Times Magazine a month after the presidential election, as the media buzzed about inaccurate predictions, liberal bubbles and the … Read more
One of the first works I read by Ted Conover, the country’s reigning master of immersion reporting, was “Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing,” his 2000 book chronicling 10 months he spent guarding a maximum-security prison. That’s probably why I had imagined … Read more
When I sat down to write this, I was a millennial about to tackle one of many adulthood markers – college graduation – and I struggled with the feeling of bouncing back and forth from being an adult one second … Read more
I first heard “Debatable,” an episode of the RadioLab podcast about a black, queer student debater named Ryan Wash, while I was on a run in the woods of mid-Missouri. I kid you not – as I reached the … Read more
We’re drowning in imagery these days: photos on the pages of newspapers and magazines, on televisions, smart phones, iPads and laptops; full-wrap ads on buses, trains and towering buildings; even a Lilliputian universe on our wristwatches. Research shows that readers … Read more
For four months last winter, methane gas spewed silently and stealthily in a monumental leak from a natural gas storage facility into an affluent Southern California neighborhood. When it finally stopped in February, scientists called it the largest methane leak … Read more
