The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

This week, we’re sharing stories from Evan Ratliff, Gene Weingarten, Zachary Fagenson, Michael H. Keller and Gabriel J.X. Dance, and Clio Chang.

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1. The Murder of Jamal Khashoggi

Evan Ratliff | Business Insider | October 1, 2019 | 43 minutes (10,944 words)

“One year ago the journalist Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and never walked out… We’re retelling it because Jamal Khashoggi’s story should be heard in full. And because even if you think you know what happened, you may not know how or why.”

2. The Beating Heart

Gene Weingarten | The Washington Post Magazine | September 30, 2019 | 44 minutes (11,011 words)

“Nothing convincingly explains the strange chemistry, the alchemy, that has kept the heart of a sullen, violent, tormented criminal beating for so long in a gentle mother’s chest… Yes, Eva Baisey got a murderer’s heart. But it was also a broken heart. It fixed her, and she fixed it.”

3. The Nightmare in the Bahamas Is Far From Over

Zachary Fagenson | Miami New Times | October 1, 2019 | 16 minutes (4,108 words)

On September 1, 2019, Hurricane Dorian struck the Bahamas as a Category 5 storm. Reuters correspondent Zachary Fagenson reports from Great Abaco, which was nearly obliterated: “For the next three days, it would be our discomfiting task to point our recording equipment at piles of rubble that days earlier had been houses, and to extract stories from the occupants who’d abandoned them to the hurricane, who now were reduced to convulsive sobs at the sight of what had become of their homes and their lives.”

4. The Internet Is Overrun With Images of Child Sexual Abuse. What Went Wrong?

Michael H. Keller, Gabriel J.X. Dance | The New York Times | September 28, 2019 | 21 minutes (5,381 words)

“Last year, tech companies reported over 45 million online photos and videos of children being sexually abused — more than double what they found the previous year… Online predators create and share the illegal material, which is increasingly cloaked by technology. Tech companies, the government, and the authorities are no match.”

Content Note: “Articles in this series examine the explosion in online photos and videos of children being sexually abused. They include graphic descriptions of some instances of the abuse.”