Editor’s Pick

An investigation into Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s troubled past: “Yet he ‘never raised any red flags,’ says one of his history teachers, who, like many, requested anonymity, given the sensitivity of the case. Her class, a perennial favorite among Rindge students, fosters heated debates about contemporary political issues like globalization and the crises in the Middle East, […]

A new mother gets a glimpse into the life of another new mom—via her baby monitor. (The essay will be featured in the forthcoming Best American Essays 2013, edited by Cheryl Strayed): “For the first few months after my son was born, I called him The Baby, or sometimes just Him with a capital H, […]

Choral director Catherine Roma is going into prisons to help inmates find their voice: “This choir isn’t her first in a prison. She started the UMOJA Men’s Chorus (Swahili for unity) two decades ago at the Warren County Correctional Institution near Lebanon as part of a Wilmington College educational program. Under Roma’s leadership, that group […]

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is spending millions to change the way we think about higher education. It includes potential changes on how students receive federal aid, and projects that aim to deliver a college degree that costs no more than $5,000 a year. But is it a good thing—and what really needs fixing? […]

The writer, who is black, on how his experience with racism and racial profiling has formed his identity in the U.S.: “Among the more concrete ramifications of this corruption of the imagination is that when the police suspect a black man or boy of having a gun, he becomes murderable: Murderable despite having earned advanced […]

Meet the man who created “Deep Thoughts” and “Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer”—and who is about to release his first novel, The Stench of Honolulu: “’A lot of comedy is going the extra step,’ Handey continued. ‘An unfrozen caveman was funny — but that’s not enough.’ Later, he e-mailed me a sheet of sketch ideas he typed […]

“How foolish they are to try to make something.” Here’s the classic 1981 BBC interview highlighting the work of theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.” You can also read Feynman’s book of the same name.

What it will take for the families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to get sensible gun laws passed in the United States? A brief history of gun laws, and what’s next: “I stood before the Sandy Hook families on that day in January to brief them on the basics of gun policy and […]

An examination of the American Medical Association’s special committee that meets three times a year to determine how much Medicare should pay doctors for the medical procedures they perform: In a free market society, there’s a name for this kind of thing—for when a roomful of professionals from the same trade meet behind closed doors […]

Picks from Emily Perper, a freelance editor and reporter currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps. This week’s picks include stories from the New Statesman, Oprah Magazine, Rookie, and The Rumpus.