The Weird Space That Lies Outside Our Solar System

Launched in the 1970s, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 — the first two spacecraft and human-made objects to leave our solar system — have reached interstellar space and now beam back images from this mysterious region.

Source: BBC
Published: Sep 8, 2020
Length: 8 minutes (2,234 words)

In China, GitHub Is a Free Speech Zone for Covid Information

“As coronavirus news was increasingly trapped behind the Great Firewall, the programming platform became a refuge from censorship. It may not last long.”

Source: Wired
Published: Sep 9, 2020
Length: 6 minutes (1,590 words)

How Philanthropy Benefits the Super-Rich

““We should expect inequality to decrease somewhat as philanthropy increases … It has not,” writes Kevin Laskowski, a field associate at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.”

Source: The Guardian
Published: Sep 8, 2020
Length: 16 minutes (4,043 words)

Out There: On Not Finishing

“What happens if the stories we tell ourselves about our lives leave us lonely, wrestling with meaning?”

Source: Longreads
Published: Sep 8, 2020
Length: 17 minutes (4,304 words)

The Wound of Multilingualism: On Surrendering the Languages of Home

“Learning a language as an adult or in your teens, especially with a history of repeated migrations between languages and countries, is extraordinarily difficult. It isn’t just about swallowing new words like passion fruit that glides down your throat. It’s like chewing on stones breaking your teeth in order to seed the foundations of that new language on your tongue already heavy with many idioms.”

Source: LitHub
Published: Sep 8, 2020
Length: 6 minutes (1,627 words)

The Unfinished Story of Emmett Till’s Final Journey

“Till was murdered 65 years ago. Sites of commemoration across the Mississippi Delta still struggle with what’s history and what’s hearsay.”

Source: GEN
Published: Sep 3, 2020
Length: 22 minutes (5,659 words)

The Secret Economics Of a VIP Party

Behind every £100,000 bar tab, there is a secret economy of pretty women.

Source: Economist
Published: Jul 3, 2020
Length: 15 minutes (3,821 words)

The Daring Nun Who Hid and Saved 83 Jewish Children

“Her own bishop supported Pétain so she wrote to Archbishop Saliège for advice. She records his response in her journal: “Let’s lie, let’s lie, my daughter, as long as we are saving human lives.””

Source: BBC
Published: Sep 6, 2020
Length: 9 minutes (2,448 words)

‘It’s Going to Be Our Way Now’: The Guerrilla Rewilder Shaking Up British Farming

“If we keep on course with this we’ll be left living on a planet full of pigeons and dogs on the beaten-down crust of our own excrement.”

Source: The Guardian
Published: Sep 4, 2020
Length: 8 minutes (2,100 words)

What Ails America

“We would like to think we have health care that incidentally involves some wealth transfer; what we actually have is wealth transfer that incidentally involves some health care.”

Published: Sep 3, 2020
Length: 18 minutes (4,700 words)