A personal essay in which Kimi Eisele contemplates coherence, the near extinction of the vaquita, and the expensive bycatch of being human.

“That’s crazy. People won’t talk about abortion! They’re afraid to. I’m going to talk about abortion! ABORTION!”

What a story: A Californian living in Germany discovers a ferry wake you can surf on the Baltic Sea. He was even making a movie about it. The German surfers who’d already surfed that and other Baltic waves were offended by the American’s repackaging of German history. Maybe they were talking about two different kinds of truth.

A feature in which Jamie Lauren Keiles looks at the cultural history of the Jewish American Princess — and her own history of aspiring to be one.

A harrowing and heartbreaking reconstruction of a deadly fire tornado that tore through Redding, California during the Carr Fire earlier this summer. The fire killed eight people and ruined more than 1,000 homes.

Jen Doll dives into the world of the band Phish and their followers, known as “phans.” She discovers a hippy-esque subculture of “you do you” people dedicated not only to a band renowned for live jams, but a shared appreciation for uninhibited drug consumption, joyful escapism, and making new Phish-following-friends at every show.

Every year, around 116,255 people get shot in the U.S. Shootings happen with such frequency that it’s too easy to forget the survivors, who spend their days in wheelchairs, hospital beds, and physical therapy sessions, haunted by past events and their uncertain futures.

“‘Being a woman in blockchain,’ she says, ‘is like riding a bicycle. Except the bicycle is on fire. And everything is on fire. And you are going to hell.'”

One outdoor enthusiast questions the role alcohol plays in outdoor sports and in her own life, with all its risk-taking and adrenaline highs.

From the Nation’s archive, Jeff Gottlieb and Jeff Cohen reported on the civil suit brought forth by survivors of the December 4, 1969 raid of Chicago Black Panther headquarters that left Party chairman Fred Hampton and another party member dead. Local and federal authorities finally agreed to a settlement in November 1982, after a long trial and an appeal.

At GQ, family, friends, and co-workers share their memories of chef and television host Anthony Bourdain, who died in June, 2018.

“Mothers and fathers who have a child placed in foster care because they are incarcerated — but who have not been accused of child abuse, neglect, endangerment, or even drug or alcohol use — are more likely to have their parental rights terminated than those who physically or sexually assault their kids, according to a Marshall Project analysis of approximately 3 million child-welfare cases nationally.”

Like cowboys in westerns, sheriffs were icons in the 20th century. They were the law. No matter what white residents in Alabaman’s Wilcox County say, so-called good ol’ boy Sherriff Lummie Jenkins used his power to violently suppress black voters and battle the Civil Rights movement. He’s no icon.

“It feels so strange, so unnecessarily fanciful to attempt to describe in English something we ate almost all the time.”

Was Amazon’s HQ2 search a real contest, or a foregone decision rooted in a polarized economic system that funnels wealth toward a few major cities?

State law protects Arizona’s cultural heritage by requiring surveying on public land where Native American materials are found. That’s why the Arizona State Parks Director asked a staff archaeologist to lie about the contents of one proposed park site.

Scott C. Jones on being repeatedly molested as a child and how video games have helped him to navigate years of living with self-doubt.

On a Missouri farm, two families worked the land side by side, until a murder shattered their American dream.

Ivy League schools love stories of underprivileged students overcoming all the odds to make it to the top, so that’s what T.M. Landry fed them — at the expense of the students themselves.

The era Peak Television has segued directly into the Nadir of Criticism, and it’s not good for anyone.