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It was around 7:30, the sky dark but not black, the air crisp but not cold. I parked my 1996 Buick Regal, which Adam had driven before he left, but gave to me while he was in Iraq. When I saw my uncle and his family from Pickerington through the living room window, I paused. Why would they be here? Then my mom opened the door and walked toward me, her facial expression a mix of agony and attempted composure. 

“Our worst fears have come true,” she said as I walked up the driveway.

I knew what she meant.

I had to ask, though, just to hear the words. To let them hit home.

“Adam?” I said. “He’s dead?”

‘Our Worst Fears Have Come True.’ — Tom Knox, Columbus Monthly

See more #longreads about the Army

In December 2008, DeChristopher shot to fame as Bidder 70 when he entered a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oil- and gas-lease auction in Utah, posed as a buyer, and laid claim to 22,500 acres of wilderness worth nearly $1.8 million. His comeuppance, handed down in early March, a month before Power Shift, was a federal conviction on two felony counts: making false statements and violating the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act. Together they carry a maximum sentence of $750,000 in fines and up to ten years in prison—a prospect that explains why he’s been packing on the muscle. DeChristopher’s reward, however, has been a rapid rise to folk-hero status.

“The Trials of Bidder 70.” — Abe Streep, Outside magazine

See more #longreads from Outside magazine

In December 2008, DeChristopher shot to fame as Bidder 70 when he entered a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oil- and gas-lease auction in Utah, posed as a buyer, and laid claim to 22,500 acres of wilderness worth nearly $1.8 million. His comeuppance, handed down in early March, a month before Power Shift, was a federal conviction on two felony counts: making false statements and violating the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act. Together they carry a maximum sentence of $750,000 in fines and up to ten years in prison—a prospect that explains why he’s been packing on the muscle. DeChristopher’s reward, however, has been a rapid rise to folk-hero status.

“The Trials of Bidder 70.” — Abe Streep, Outside magazine

See more #longreads from Outside magazine

The way she held Menashi with her suckers seemed to me like the way a long-married couple holds hands at the movies.

“Deep Intellect.” — Sy Montgomery, Orion Magazine

Also by Orion: “The Reign of the One Percenters.” Sept. 30, 2011

The way she held Menashi with her suckers seemed to me like the way a long-married couple holds hands at the movies.

“Deep Intellect.” — Sy Montgomery, Orion Magazine

Also by Orion: “The Reign of the One Percenters.” Sept. 30, 2011

When Kruse IM’d Kim to see if she was done babysitting, no response came. But he didn’t expect one. The instant message was a cover. Kruse knew Kim had never made it to her job. She was right there in his house with him and Cam. Bound. Beaten. Raped. And, by the next morning, stuffed in his freezer. Dead.

Everyone knows teens live with abandon online—exposing their secrets, likes, dislikes, sexual preferences, home addresses, phone numbers, and so on—in ways their parents can’t understand. But it’s not just this generation’s sense of privacy that’s eroding. It’s their sense of permanence. They act as though the words they write and pictures they post and texts they send vanish into the ether. But in fact they’re leaving a running transcript behind, a digital trail of their hopes, their anxieties, and, in the case of at least one small Canadian town, even their crimes.

“Murder by Text.” — David Kushner, Vanity Fair

See more #longreads from Vanity Fair

When Kruse IM’d Kim to see if she was done babysitting, no response came. But he didn’t expect one. The instant message was a cover. Kruse knew Kim had never made it to her job. She was right there in his house with him and Cam. Bound. Beaten. Raped. And, by the next morning, stuffed in his freezer. Dead.

Everyone knows teens live with abandon online—exposing their secrets, likes, dislikes, sexual preferences, home addresses, phone numbers, and so on—in ways their parents can’t understand. But it’s not just this generation’s sense of privacy that’s eroding. It’s their sense of permanence. They act as though the words they write and pictures they post and texts they send vanish into the ether. But in fact they’re leaving a running transcript behind, a digital trail of their hopes, their anxieties, and, in the case of at least one small Canadian town, even their crimes.

“Murder by Text.” — David Kushner, Vanity Fair

See more #longreads from Vanity Fair

Featured Longreader: Writer Elmo Keep. See her story picks from Wired, Foreign Policy, The Hairpin and more on her #longreads page.

Featured Longreader: Writer Elmo Keep. See her story picks from Wired, Foreign Policy, The Hairpin and more on her #longreads page.

As the 1950s arrived, more teams starting signing African-Americans. A turning point came when the great Jim Brown, from Syracuse, joined the Cleveland Browns in 1957. Brown’s domination on the field was so thorough that all questions about the skills of black players were erased—except in the nation’s capital, whose team, Marshall said, would “start signing Negroes when the Harlem Globetrotters start signing whites.”

Washingtonians, it must be said, did not simply let all this go unremarked. Redskins fans, then as now, were among the most passionate in the league, and many ardent supporters among both the Georgetown set and the hoi polloi urged Marshall to rethink matters. Their view was given its strongest expression by Shirley Povich, the star Washington Post sportswriter. Povich (a man—Shirley was a male name as often as it was a female name in the early twentieth century) was Jewish and a native of Maine who originally moved to Washington to study law at Georgetown. He often wrote sentences like “Jim Brown, born ineligible to play for the Redskins, integrated their end zone three times yesterday.” Marshall remained unmoved.

“The Racist Redskins.” — Michael Tomasky, The New York Review of Books

Also by Michael Tomasky: “Something New on the Mall.” The New York Review of Books, Oct. 22, 2009