The Reality-TV Star Spencer Pratt on America’s Addiction to Drama

Spencer Pratt’s fame “doesn’t necessarily stem from any immediately recognizable talents.” He and his wife Heidi Montag were the villains of the mid-aughts reality show The Hills, where they were beloved for their strange California-accented-behavior. (Implants! Cristal! Crystals!) Seven years later, Pratt has become a elder-statesman of sorts, a connoisseur of pseudo-celebrity he once peddled, and an expert on the the reality star who currently occupies the Oval Office.

Author: Naomi Fry
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Jun 30, 2017
Length: 8 minutes (2,200 words)

Death By Bitcoin

Synthetic opioids are the U.S.’s fastest-growing cause of overdose deaths. The synthetic that killed 18-year old Aisha Zughbieh-Collins in Portland, Oregon was new to local public health officials, and they didn’t know where she got it. Investigators discovered a chain of custody reaching into the dark web, where vendors sell drugs for bitcoin.

Source: Willamette Week
Published: Jul 5, 2017
Length: 11 minutes (2,891 words)

Nick Kyrgios, the Reluctant Rising Star of Tennis

Twenty-two-year-old Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios is ranked 20th in the world and has beat tennis greats Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic on the court. He’s also flagrantly tried to lose matches on purpose out of frustration, argued with umpires, and berated ball kids. The tennis world is waiting for Kyrgios to mature, but his heart might not be in the game.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Jul 3, 2017
Length: 18 minutes (4,658 words)

Children of the Opioid Epidemic Are Flooding Foster Homes. America Is Turning a Blind Eye.

The first casualty of America’s opioid epidemic beyond the users themselves? The American family. As mom and dad are nodding out and overdosing in record numbers, the kids are going into an under-funded foster care system struggling to handle the sheer volume of children who need food, shelter, clothing, and above all, stability.

Source: Mother Jones
Published: Jul 31, 2017
Length: 10 minutes (2,539 words)

A Legal Journalist on the “Surreal” Experience of Becoming a U.S. Citizen Under Trump

Sarah Jeong has spent the past several months covering Trump’s travel ban… while officially becoming an American citizen.

Source: Vox
Published: Jul 5, 2017
Length: 13 minutes (3,343 words)

How Eclipse Chasers Are Putting a Small Kentucky Town on the Map

Hopkinsville sits 11 miles from where the sun, moon and earth will form a straight line during this summer’s total solar eclipse. Locals predict that the 33,000 person town’s position will attract enough stargazers to triple its existence. As any Olympic city can tell you, popularity comes with a cost.

Source: Mental Floss
Published: Jun 30, 2017
Length: 27 minutes (6,823 words)

How to Sell a Billion-Dollar Myth Like a French Girl

The origins and consequences of everyone’s favorite Parisian fantasy.

Source: Racked
Published: Jul 5, 2017
Length: 22 minutes (5,600 words)

How Gotham Gave Us Trump

New York’s tumultuous `70s and `80s taught Donald Trump about the power of the politics of fear — and very little about what makes cities work.

Source: Politico
Published: Jul 30, 2017
Length: 18 minutes (4,604 words)

Paper Genocide

Indian Health Services is supposed to provide government-funded healthcare for the Native American population. But compared to Veterans Affairs, Medicare, and Medicaid, it spends the lowest amount on its patients. Hospitals routinely are unable to perform specialized services, and the native population in Santa Fe sometimes must travel hundreds of miles to their reservation, just to receive care.

Published: Jun 28, 2017
Length: 12 minutes (3,100 words)

When it Takes Being Thrown to Learn How to Land

Just after her 40th birthday, former aerialist Joanne Solomon was thrown from her bicycle while riding on the Manhattan Bridge, and it set her life on a different course.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jun 30, 2017
Length: 10 minutes (2,527 words)