The Atavist

At the world’s largest gathering of psychics and mediums, two brothers confront a painful secret.

A murder in New Orleans, a trial that lasted less than a day, and the lives they entangled for the next three decades. Published in partnership with The Lens.

People said that women had no place in the Grand Canyon and would likely die trying to run the Colorado River. In 1938, two female scientists set out to prove them wrong.

“A flimsy raft, more than 100 souls, and three teenage heroes—or are they pirates?”

“As darkness fell, Nhek and Soem, clutching the tree trunks as flotation devices, eased into the flow of the Mekong, submerging their sweaty bodies into the dark torrent. Water soaked their clothes and splashed their faces as the current carried them south toward freedom.”

“The evidence shows that if this were Jimmy Smith from Georgetown, not Mohamed Abdallah, who got in an accident with the Samses, we would not be here today.”

“Just as much as the state needed to punish murder, so too did it have to enforce proper womanhood in a rapidly changing social order. Science, journalism, and law, still the dominions of men, were tools for catching bad women and holding them accountable. “

“Paying for his breakfast would require the last of the cash in his wallet. After that, he had only $1.75 left in a Prosperity Bank checking account, which he’d opened roughly eight years earlier. But Averill wasn’t worried about money. The bank was less than a block away, and when he finished eating he was going to rob it.”

What happens when an adoption fails? The harrowing story of one young boy in Florida.

On a Missouri farm, two families worked the land side by side, until a murder shattered their American dream.