Longreads

Buying and selling people into forced labor is bigger than ever. What "human trafficking" really means.Slaves pan for gold in Accra, Ghana. Many have children with them as they wade in water poisoned…

The Michael Lewis World Tour of Economic Collapse Michael Lewis / Vanity Fair / 2009-2011

Something was killing Hmong men in their sleep, and no one could figure out what it was. There was no obvious cause of death. None of them had been sick, physically. The men weren't clustered all that tightly, geographically speaking. They were united by dislocation from Laos and a shared culture, but little else. Even House would have been stumped. Doctors gave the problem a name, the kind that reeks of defeat, a dragon label on the edge of the known medical world: Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome. SUNDS. It didn't do much in terms of diagnosis or treatment, but it was easier to track the periodic conferences dedicated to understanding the problem.