Why Oil-Loving Louisiana Should Embrace America’s Coming Offshore Wind Boom

The budding wind power industry is rich in jobs, and the people of south Louisiana are ready for clean energy.

Source: Longreads
Published: Aug 23, 2017
Length: 8 minutes (2,051 words)

Serena Williams on Pregnancy, Power, and Coming Back to Center Court

Serena Williams is planning on returning to the women’s tour to defend her Australian Open title, just three months after she gives birth. “It’s the most outrageous plan,” she says.

Source: Vogue
Published: Aug 15, 2017
Length: 13 minutes (3,319 words)

Richard Florida is Sorry

Sam Wetherell analyzes urban theorist Richard Florida’s apparent about-face on the benefits of luring members of the “creative class” to depressed cities in need of revitalization. Governmental leaders in major cities around the world have used Florida’s 2002 book, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life, as a bible for urban renewal. Florida contended that attracting artists, writers, musicians, graphic designers, people in technology and other creative fields would be an economic boon. What he didn’t expect was that it would mostly help those already rich and lead to the displacement of those at the lower rungs of the economic ladder — something he all but apologizes for in his latest book, The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class—and What We Can Do About It

Source: Jacobin
Published: Aug 19, 2017
Length: 6 minutes (1,540 words)

The Great Divide: Growing up in Rural Washington as a Muslim Immigrant

“Through the years, I stopped feeling pressured to either be less Japanese or more Japanese, and decided just to be. It became easier when I found someone who helped me remain intact.” Hayat Norimine describes what it was like to grow up as an only child in a Japanese-Syrian household in Pullman, a town in the Palouse region of Washington State.

Source: Seattle Met
Published: Aug 17, 2017
Length: 14 minutes (3,679 words)

Grenfell Was No Ordinary Accident

Henry Wismayer reports on the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire. The worst fire disaster in London since the Blitz during World War II, the blaze claimed 80 lives. To outsiders, London, England may appear to be a “a paragon of functioning multiculturalism,” however the Grenfell fire has become England’s “Katrina moment” — the catastrophic event which exposes society’s egregious treatment of and contempt for its poor.

Source: CityLab
Published: Aug 17, 2017
Length: 10 minutes (2,614 words)

This Is How Sexism Works in Silicon Valley

In this excerpt from Pao’s upcoming book, she traces her six years at the Silicon Valley firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a junior partner and chief of staff, and the relentless harassment and sexism she witnessed as she rose to the top.

Author: Ellen Pao
Published: Aug 20, 2017
Length: 21 minutes (5,400 words)

A Most American Terrorist: The Making of Dylann Roof

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah’s harrowing feature explores not only the background of Dylann Roof, who murdered nine parishioners of Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church in 2015, but also the racial and social identities that still prevail throughout the South.

Source: GQ
Published: Aug 21, 2017
Length: 48 minutes (12,206 words)

How My Instagram Hacker Changed My Life

After her sought-after five-letter Instagram handle was stolen by an Iranian hacker, professor Negar Mottahedeh opens up the door to her former homeland, striking up an unlikely friendship with the thief to learn more about a man struggling to earn a living in an economy compromised by 35 years of US-led sanctions.

Source: Backchannel
Published: Aug 18, 2017
Length: 12 minutes (3,036 words)

To Catch a Counterfeiter

Western companies pay private detectives to infiltrate and bust China’s $400 billion counterfeit industry. This is what the job is like on the ground.

Published: Aug 3, 2017
Length: 15 minutes (3,807 words)

Family Band

In a sport that demands individualism, the Zverevs roll deep.

Published: Aug 22, 2017
Length: 8 minutes (2,122 words)