Automattic

Dispatches from Portland, Chicago, Paris, London, Montreal, Berlin, Lisbon and other cities around the world where rampant gentrification appears to be displacing whole communities and cultures and creating playgrounds for the rich.

Esther Wang travels to Las Vegas to whey the potential impact of Asian voters on the election, in a swing state like Nevada—the swing state with the highest proportion of eligible Asian American voters, and the country’s fastest-growing population of Asian Americans.

As consumer preferences change, the food industry is scrambling to replace artificial dyes used in their food with natural pigments, which is much harder to do than one might think.

An essay on ambition to end all essays on ambition.

A former New York City house cleaner reflects on the odd materiality of other people’s lives.

How “vaudeville’s worst act” fought for fame and respect on the stage.

“It has been less than a year since Mazurenko died, and he continues to loom large in the lives of the people who knew him. When they miss him, they send messages to his avatar, and they feel closer to him when they do. ‘There was a lot I didn’t know about my child,’ Roman’s […]

Braun recounts his time pretending to work as a staff photographer for a fake neighborhood newspaper to gain up-close access to the Atlanta Braves.

A husband and wife are tortured and nearly stabbed to death by a former employee’s husband. Was it revenge, or an addict’s “medication-induced delirium”?

When UC Berkeley, once a hotbed of political activism and progressive thinking, tried to stop an undergraduate peace and conflict studies major from teaching a class on Palestinian history, it fueled a hot-button debate about Anti-Semitism, academic freedom and the ways universities can foster inclusive intellectual discourse.