The Big Money

Thanks to huge casino profits, the youth of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians receive a payment they call “The Big Money” at age 18 after graduating from high school. Payments — which were as small as $600 when the program started in 1996 — are now into six figures.

Source: Topic
Published: Feb 5, 2019
Length: 13 minutes (3,369 words)

Orphan Bachelors

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 declared the Chinese ineligible for citizenship, this after Americans had been exploiting their labor for over forty years. Some Chinese nationals bypassed the Act with false paperwork, and decades later, the government pressured many “paper citizens” into confessing, leaving a lasting mark on many families, including the author’s.

Published: Feb 1, 2019
Length: 11 minutes (2,870 words)

Fight the Ship: Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed By Its Own Navy

When a cargo ship plowed into the USS Fitzgerald, it tore a hole in the destroyer as big as a tractor trailer; seven sailors ultimately died. A cargo ship should be hard to miss, so how did it happen?

Source: ProPublica
Published: Feb 6, 2019
Length: 71 minutes (17,829 words)

A Suspense Novelist’s Trail of Deceptions

A profile of a scam artist: Before Dan Mallory wrote a New York Times best-selling novel, he rose through the ranks of the publishing industry by creating a series of fabrications about his life and deceiving colleagues.

Author: Ian Parker
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Feb 4, 2019
Length: 47 minutes (11,957 words)

The Sommeliers of Everything

A new breed of experts is here to help you appreciate the hard-to-name nuances in real Dijon, to let you experience the aroma of honey more deeply, and to choose the right water for your meal, but do we need certified experts to appreciate what we eat? And what makes these specialists experts?

Source: Washington Post
Published: Feb 4, 2019
Length: 21 minutes (5,344 words)

Every Day I Write the Book

In this personal essay, at 63, Michael Musto reveals how he keeps managing to add new chapters to the consistently unfolding story of his career.

Source: Longreads
Published: Feb 5, 2019
Length: 8 minutes (2,035 words)

‘What Happens in This House Stays in This House’: Black Women Sound the Alarm about Domestic Violence in the African American Community

By telling the stories of  Ishaunna Gully and Davokiee Ann Jackson, two women from Laurel, Mississippi, photojournalist Eric J. Shelton tries to understand the specific threat of intimate partner violence for black women in the South.

Published: Feb 4, 2019
Length: 15 minutes (3,881 words)

Climate Signs

“For all the ferocity of my love, I’m powerless to protect my kids from the mass extinction we’re in the midst of that could eliminate 30–50 percent of all living species by the middle of the twenty-first century. Why is this not the core of the core curriculum? Why aren’t we all speaking about this?”

Published: Feb 1, 2019
Length: 49 minutes (12,293 words)

The Deported Americans

This is how the children of undocumented immigrants live in a purgatory between two cultures when they get sent “back” to a country where they didn’t grow up.

Published: Jan 31, 2019
Length: 15 minutes (3,863 words)

The Quest for the Multigenerational City

When Megan Kimble moved to Austin, Texas, she started to volunteer with Capital City Village, a nonprofit that allows people to age in their homes by connecting members with those that can do repairs and offer rides. Simply wanting to truly know her new city and its inhabitants a little better, Kimble discovered that spending time with those far older than her offered not only new friendships, but valuable perspective and solace unavailable anywhere else at any price.

Source: CityLab
Published: Jan 29, 2019
Length: 9 minutes (2,255 words)