Editor’s Pick

[Fiction] A woman whose marriage is ending finds a new place to live: “When my marriage fell apart one summer, I had to get out of the little flat in Kentish Town, where I had been first happy and then sad. I arranged to live for a few months in another woman’s house; she agreed […]

A writer goes to Portland, Ore. where the karaoke scene is vibrant and taken seriously: “‘Karaoke in Portland is just different from other places,’ said his friend Bruce Morrison. ‘There’s a lot of showmanship.’ “Mulkern swept his long hair over his shoulders and put his top hat back on. ‘People in Portland,’ he declared, ‘are […]

A look at the families who are not just affected by returning veterans, but display similar symptons: “Brannan and Katie’s teacher have conferenced about Katie’s behavior many times. Brannan’s not surprised she’s picked up overreacting and yelling—you don’t have to be at the Vines residence for too long to hear Caleb hollering from his room, […]

A look at ecologist Bob Paine, whose mentorship has produced a long line of influential scientists throughout his five-decade career: “Soon, Paine’s students were growing up and embarking on careers of their own. Few have spawned as rich a legacy as Jane Lubchenco and Bruce Menge. They met as graduate students in Paine’s lab in […]

How an era of rampant expansion—and sloppy spelling—led to the creation of strange or questionable street names in Las Vegas: “With all this rapid expansion came strange civic issues. As Rothman notes in his book, police officers were given new maps of the city every week. Some of the streets on the map, he points […]

A college football star learns about the death of his grandmother and girlfriend on the same day and has inspirational stories written about him by major media outlets. But there’s a problem: His girlfriend never existed: “There was no Lennay Kekua. Lennay Kekua did not meet Manti Te’o after the Stanford game in 2009. Lennay […]

Social network CEOs look for wisdom from evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar, who pioneered research into human relationships: “A little more than 10 years ago, the evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar began a study of the Christmas-card-sending habits of the English. This was in the days before online social networks made friends and “likes” as countable as […]

A writer recalls being 14 and in the closet in 1995: “I had never been more proud of myself. I decided to notice you so no one would notice me, and now I was not only assumed straight, but assumed worthy of conversation. I just had to keep broadcasting straightness loud enough to drown out […]

A prisoner in Connecticut who is protesting his conviction by refusing food is now being force-fed. Is it torture? “Staff turned off the video camera typically used to record medical procedures. They strapped Coleman down at ‘four points’ with seatbelt-like ‘therapeutic’ restraints. Edward Blanchette, the internist and prison medical director at the time, pushed a […]

A political journalist comes home from the campaign trail and reacquaints himself with his children: “During my absence, I left express instructions that my son was not to approach puberty, but as I tie his tie I am met by his deodorant. He’s wearing something called Axe. They use it to repel rioting crowds, I […]