The Religion No One Talks About: My Search for Answers in an Old Caribbean Faith

A personal essay in which, after her grandmother’s passing, writer Sarah Betancourt explores Espiritismo — the secret religion her family kept hidden in their basement laundry room.

Source: Longreads
Published: Mar 30, 2018
Length: 22 minutes (5,704 words)

How Nashville Became One Big Bachelorette Party

Nashville wants you to visit when you’re young, when you’re thinking about your future, perhaps even considering a move to this “it” city where Jack White and the Black Keys make their home. So the city is catering to a group that’s thinking about their future in big way: bachelorettes.

Source: BuzzFeed
Published: Mar 29, 2018
Length: 27 minutes (6,900 words)

Gun Fatalism Is Reasonable in a Terrifying Country

In January, when a teenager killed two of his classmates  Marshall County High School, in Benton, Kentucky, there were no protests, no uprising. The blame went to video games, bullying, parents, the culture at large. Guns were not to blame, far from it.

Source: Jezebel
Published: Mar 24, 2018
Length: 26 minutes (6,600 words)

NFL Scoops From Heaven

Whether ESPN reporter Adrian Wojnarowski is dropping #wojbombs, or Adam Schefter is piling NFL scoop after scoop into his Twitter timeline, there are certain reporters who seem to always be the first to know who signed where and for how much money. That is, until Sports Spectrum, a burgeoning Christian website, began to beat the ESPNs and other mainstream outlets at a game they’ve long since perfected. How? By allowing athletes to express their faith and religious beliefs.

Source: The Ringer
Published: Mar 23, 2018
Length: 7 minutes (1,906 words)

The Bottom Line

Diaper companies have poured billions of dollars into research and development to make their products better, but not cheaper, which can be hard on low-income families living on a tight budget.

Source: Tampa Bay Times
Published: Mar 28, 2018
Length: 14 minutes (3,741 words)

Whatever’s Your Darkest Secret, You Can Ask Me

A feature on a growing secret network women who — bucking the law and the medical establishment — are getting trained to offer abortions, safely and inexpensively, in the privacy of women’s homes.

Published: Mar 28, 2018
Length: 27 minutes (6,799 words)

The Doctor is a Woman

An excerpt from Sloane Crosley’s new essay collection, Look Alive Out There. Crosley reflects on the experience of freezing her eggs, despite her ambivalence about having children — and as a way of putting off the pressing matter of facing that ambivalence as a woman in her late 30s.

Source: The Cut
Published: Mar 26, 2018
Length: 33 minutes (8,293 words)

Why Do We Think Serial Killers All Wear the Same Glasses?

A cultural survey of the myth of murders’ eyewear.

Source: Racked
Published: Mar 20, 2018
Length: 7 minutes (1,903 words)

Why I’m Suing Over My Dream Internship

Illgner was paid £30 a day for working nine-hour shifts as an intern at Monocle, a magazine based in London — well below the minimum wage. She’s suing for unpaid wages and asking her former employer to start paying its current and future interns the statutory national minimum wage.

Source: The Guardian
Published: Mar 27, 2018
Length: 18 minutes (4,534 words)

School Segregation in America Is As Bad Today As It Was in the 1960s

Unlike many Southern cities, Charlotte, North Carolina embraced federally mandated public school integration in the 20th century, but Charlotte, like America, has reverted.

Source: Newsweek
Published: Mar 22, 2018
Length: 23 minutes (5,876 words)