Waterworld

Still or sparkling or artesian or glacier? Martin Riese, America’s first water sommelier, believes that the more we think about what we drink, the more we’ll care about the planet.

Source: AFAR
Published: Oct 28, 2020
Length: 16 minutes (4,187 words)

Arrested, Tortured, Imprisoned: The U.S. Contractors Abandoned in Kuwait

“Dozens of military contractors, most of them Black, have been jailed in the emirate—some on trumped-up drug charges. Why has the American government failed to help them?”

Published: Oct 28, 2020
Length: 34 minutes (8,500 words)

Data Disappeared

Over nearly four years, the Trump administration has” defunded, buried, and constrained dozens of federal research and data collection projects across multiple agencies and spheres of policy: environment, agriculture, labor, health, immigration, energy, the census.” This is an accounting of the damage.

Published: Oct 29, 2020
Length: 46 minutes (11,700 words)

AOC’s Next Four Years

“The history-making congresswoman addresses her biggest critics, the challenges that loom no matter who wins, and what she’s taking on next.”

Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Oct 28, 2020
Length: 22 minutes (5,611 words)

What to Do About Ahav?

“A mother’s fight to save a Black, mentally ill 11-year-old boy in a time of a pandemic and rising racial unrest.”

Published: Oct 24, 2020
Length: 18 minutes (4,600 words)

The Death and Life of the Greatest American City

“The city feels simultaneously attacked, abandoned, and bereft of competent leadership. It also feels very, very alive.” In an essay at GEN, Glynnis MacNicol explores New York City’s #NoFilter era.

Source: GEN
Published: Oct 26, 2020
Length: 9 minutes (2,415 words)

What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

“Our boyfriends, our significant others, and our husbands are supposed to be No. 1. Our worlds are backward.”

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Oct 20, 2020
Length: 17 minutes (4,460 words)

‘It’s the Most Outrageous Thing I’ve Ever Seen. It Makes No Sense.’

“DNA evidence proved Lydell Grant’s innocence. So why won’t the state’s highest criminal court exonerate him?”

Source: Texas Monthly
Published: Oct 21, 2020
Length: 35 minutes (8,801 words)

Asylum Is Dead. The Myth of American Decency Died With It.

“Donald Trump took a broken system and turned it into a machine of unchecked cruelty.”

Author: Ian Gordon
Source: Mother Jones
Published: Oct 26, 2020
Length: 27 minutes (6,900 words)

The Eighth Wonder of the World*

“In exchange for billions in tax subsidies, Foxconn was supposed to build an enormous LCD factory in the tiny village of Mount Pleasant, creating 13,000 jobs.” The Verge investigates the empty promises (and empty buildings) of “Wisconn Valley.”

Source: The Verge
Published: Oct 19, 2020
Length: 39 minutes (9,970 words)