Esquire

In an incredibly moving feature, journalist Libby Copeland spends time with a couple in their 60s, Kate and Deloy Oberlin, as they very consciously prepare for Kate’s death from metastatic breast cancer, and again in the aftermath of her passing. Deloy honors his wife’s wishes that once she’s gone, for three days while her body is chilled with dry ice and frozen water bottles, a gathering his held where family and friends can visit with her body. Afterward, also per her wishes, he delivers her body to a site where it is composted as part of a study in “green” burial.

For Esquire, Robert P. Baird talks to Kevin Young, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the recently appointed poetry editor at the New Yorker about the future of poetry.

Do you know that the company that makes OxyContin and reaps the billions of dollars in profits it generates is owned by one family?

A new study from Boston University suggests that youth aged six to 12 who play football are at a higher risk for irreversible damage to their brains. Even Mike Ditka — had he a young son today — wouldn’t let him play football. “I think the risk is worse than the reward. I really do.”

A young woman encouraged her boyfriend to commit suicide in a series of texts and telephone calls. Was it a homicide?

Afghan Noorullah Aminyar was a valuable ally to the American military. Now, after a failed defection attempt and three years in detention, his asylum claims rests on the argument that the U.S. has lost the war in Afghanistan.

Spending six days in a cave without any light means hallucinations, hypothermia, and the potential for fatal falls. Why would anyone volunteer for one of the most extreme reality shows ever?

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.

The doggos of WeRateDogs have been there for us in dark times: Begun in the days after the Paris terrorist attacks in 2015, WeRateDogs is still going strong nearly two years later. It’s an eternity for a meme in Internet years, let alone dog years, but creator Matt Nelson is a college sophomore with big ambitions for his brand: “If it was just cute dogs I wouldn’t have millions of followers.”

In Canada, where the sex offender registry and convicted criminals’ names are private, a movement of “creep-hunters” has taken justice into their own hands and built a popular network of homemade videos around public shaming. Now they’re streamlining their approach to go mainstream, but at what cost?