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This week, we’re sharing stories from Jane Mayer, David Zax, Christopher Glazek, Farah Stockman, and Alex Mar.

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1. The Danger of President Pence

Jane Mayer | The New Yorker | October 16, 2017 | 52 minutes (13,211 words)

A deep dive into the political rise of Mike Pence and what some fear may happen if he were to ever to become President.

2. The War To Sell You A Mattress Is An Internet Nightmare

David Zax | Fast Company | October 16, 2017 | 23 minutes (5,766 words)

A Fast Company writer, while searching for a new mattress, stumbles into the mysterious and lucrative world of mattress review websites. One review site began raking in millions of dollars from referral links to mattress companies, sparking a nasty legal battle over the legitimacy of its mattress reviews.

3. The Secretive Family Making Billions From the Opioid Crisis

Christopher Glazek | Esquire | October 16, 2017 | 31 minutes (7,778 words)

Did you know that a single family owns the company that makes OxyContin and reaps the billions of dollars in profits it generates?

4. Becoming a Steelworker Liberated Her. Then Her Job Moved to Mexico.

Farah Stockman | The New York Times | October 14, 2017 | 32 minutes (8,105 words)

Farah Stockman profiles manufacturing employee Shannon Mulcahy during her last year at Rexnord, a bearing plant in Indianapolis, Indiana that moved to Mexico for cheaper labor. As Mulcahy trains the Mexican men who will eventually take her job, Stockman posits that American workers are not only losing their livelihoods but also their identities — the pride and self-esteem accrued from the specialized manufacturing knowledge accumulated over decades at work.

5. Love in the Time of Robots

Alex Mar | WIRED | October 17, 2017 | 49 minutes (12,300 words)

Hiroshi Ishi­guro has spent his entire life in pursuit of creating a lifelike android. But what kind of life is he trying to instill in them? For Ishi­guro, other people are just mirrors and conversation is just a set of stimuli. Can a genius inventor create a near-human if he doesn’t really understand his own kind?