Losing Gloria

After their mother was arrested and deported to Nogales, Mexico, the Marin children became wards of the state, forced to split up and live in separate homes in an overwhelmed and underfunded foster care system. Their story is just one example of the roughly half a million U.S.-born children who’ve lost a parent to arrest, detention, and deportation between 2009 and 2013.

Published: Jun 1, 2017
Length: 26 minutes (6,730 words)

Canada’s Middle Class Is on the Brink of Ruin

A new breed of hard-working Canadians are living aspirational lifestyles that push them beyond their means, and their credit card debt threatens to overtake them, and the country.

Source: The Walrus
Published: May 17, 2017
Length: 18 minutes (4,573 words)

A Price Point that Would Guarantee Exclusivity

In Brooklyn, historically black Bedford-Stuyvesant has been experiencing rapid gentrification: “As a new order has emerged, the ghosts of the previous one are everywhere, but their echoes are getting smaller, snuffed out by the tides.”

Source: n+1
Published: Jun 6, 2017
Length: 12 minutes (3,095 words)

The Great Self-Esteem Con

By now, the idea that positive self-esteem is necessary for success is more or less taken for granted. But what if it’s all based on very shaky, smartly packaged science?

Author: Will Storr
Source: The Guardian
Published: Jun 3, 2017
Length: 14 minutes (3,612 words)

Ray Spencer Didn’t Molest His Kids. So Why Did He Spend 20 Years in Prison for It?

Ray Spencer spent nearly half his life in prison, convicted of raping his own children. It’s a crime he doesn’t remember committing, and as adults, his grown children began questioning their own memories and set out to find justice for their father.

Source: Esquire
Published: May 22, 2017
Length: 24 minutes (6,000 words)

White Men

What do we get from our parents? An inheritance always comes with a tax. This essay is part of new collaboration with our friends at Topic.

Source: Topic
Published: Jun 6, 2017
Length: 5 minutes (1,300 words)

Why It’s So Hard to Find the Original Owners of Nazi-Looted Art

When the Nazis purged Germany of so-called “degenerate art” and looted from occupied countries, some private dealers like Hildebrand Gurlitt capitalized off the opportunity to hoard masterpieces and make a profit. Professionals now search what’s called ‘provenance’ to return recovered art to its original owners. It’s patient, difficult work, when it works.

Source: Smithsonian
Published: May 31, 2017
Length: 6 minutes (1,737 words)

The ISIS Fighters

BuzzFeed reporter Mike Giglio and photographer Warzer Jaff embedded with the elite Iraqi special forces soldiers on the front lines of the battle against ISIS. Their account tells the story of a seven-month attempt to free the Iraqi city of Mosul, with special attention to the “the men they lost along the way.”

Source: BuzzFeed
Published: Jun 3, 2017
Length: 32 minutes (8,200 words)

Welcome to the Green Machine

After the author’s son found himself in a series of dead ends, he joined the Army for discipline and direction. What the boy found was something that his parents, whose family members hadn’t served in the military since WWII, were even surprised to feel proud of: confidence, career options, pride, despite their fear that he could meet a horrible end.

Source: Texas Monthly
Published: Jun 1, 2017
Length: 18 minutes (4,510 words)

In California, Finding ‘Fat City’ With the Man Who Wrote It

In 1969, an author from Stockton, California published one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. He rarely talked publicly about it or why he never published another book. One poet spent the weekend strolling with the author through the old hotels and boxing rings of this inland port city, talking books, his inspiration and future possibilities.

Published: May 30, 2017
Length: 12 minutes (3,107 words)