A Letter from Black America

“My friends and I locked eyes in stunned silence. Between the four adults, we hold six degrees. Three of us are journalists. And not one of us had thought to call the police. We had not even considered it.
We also are all black. And without realizing it, in that moment, each of us had made a set of calculations, an instantaneous weighing of the pros and cons.”

Source: Politico
Published: Mar 1, 2015
Length: 11 minutes (2,956 words)

The Drug Lord With a Social Mission

Matt Bowden (a New Zealander at the forefront of the chemically engineered legal highs arms race) helped create one of the most viral outbreaks of new drugs in history. He might also have the antidote.

Published: Mar 2, 2015
Length: 27 minutes (6,900 words)

Wigs, Costumes, and ID Theft

The story of a major ID theft ring and the cops who brought them down.

Published: Mar 3, 2015
Length: 18 minutes (4,650 words)

The Buckeye Medicaid Boom

Ohio’s expansion of Medicaid has paid huge dividends for Cleveland’s major hospitals, but it’s also improved patient care.

Source: Cleveland Scene
Published: Mar 4, 2015
Length: 22 minutes (5,500 words)

The Demolition of Workers’ Comp

A co-investigation by NPR and ProPublica: Workers’ compensation benefits have been decimated over the last few decades, leaving severely injured workers vulnerable at a time when they need the most help.

Source: ProPublica
Published: Mar 4, 2015
Length: 25 minutes (6,282 words)

‘The residents of Ferguson do not have a police problem. They have a gang problem’

Ta-Nehisi Coates on what the Justice Department’s investigation revealed about Ferguson police. “The ‘focus on revenue’ was almost wholly a focus on black people as revenue. Black people in Ferguson were twice as likely to be searched during a stop, twice as likely to receive a citation when stopped, and twice as likely to be arrested during the stop, and yet were 26 percent less likely to be found with contraband.”

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Mar 5, 2015
Length: 9 minutes (2,364 words)

Grassroots Isn’t Always Best

Policy-makers and public health advocates have long prized communitarianism over top-down intervention, but new research argues that bottom-up community development projects can just as easily reinforce deprivation and the status quo.

Source: Boston Review
Published: Feb 23, 2015
Length: 9 minutes (2,280 words)

Target Has a New CEO: Will He Re-energize The Retailer?

Can Target’s new CEO help the struggling retailer?

Author: Phil Wahba
Source: Fortune
Published: Mar 1, 2015
Length: 15 minutes (3,840 words)

Confessions of a Comma Queen

The New Yorker‘s longtime copy editor reflects on a life in grammar.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Feb 23, 2015
Length: 26 minutes (6,711 words)

Outside Man

How the producer of the Hangover movies became one of the most effective advocates for prison reform in California.

Author: Jesse Katz
Published: Mar 1, 2015
Length: 25 minutes (6,330 words)