Becoming a Steelworker Liberated Her. Then Her Job Moved to Mexico.
Farah Stockman profiles manufacturing employee Shannon Mulcahy during her last year at Rexnord, a bearing plant in Indianapolis, Indiana that moved to Mexico for cheaper labor. As Mulcahy trains the Mexican men who will eventually take her job, Stockman posits that American workers are not only losing their livelihoods but also their identities — the pride and self-esteem accrued from the specialized manufacturing knowledge accumulated over decades at work.
Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades
The New York Times investigates three decades worth of sexual harassment allegations against the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. The Weinstein Company’s board fired Harvey Weinstein shortly after this investigation was published.
Production of a Lifetime: Whitney Houston and Clive Davis
Race and the cutthroat music business played significant roles in Whitney Houston’s personal and career struggles, but Houston’s inability to openly embrace her sexual orientation seems to have played a role, too. This is especially tragic considering that Clive Davis, the man who signed Houston at age 19 and helped build her career, ultimately came out himself and would not publicly address the issue.
How Big Business Got Brazil Hooked on Junk Food
Companies like Nestlé and PepsiCo are aggressively marketing their processed food products in developing nations like Brazil and India. The result: a global epidemic of obesity-related illnesses, where instead of malnutrition and hunger, more people are now obese than underweight.
The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe
Launched in 1977, the Voyager spacecraft are still out there, monitored by nine flight-team engineers who are fluent in an archaic programming code known only to them. They are forgoing retirement to squeeze every last watt out of the 40-year-old spacecraft, which will run out of energy by 2030 at the latest.
The Rise and Fall of Liz Smith, Celebrity Accomplice
At 92, gossip columnist Liz Smith is recovering from a stroke, but still looking for a scoop. She pioneered a kind of celebrity journalism in the 1980s that made national news: she made celebrities like her. Her friendship with Ivana Trump soon became part of the story, as the Trump divorce ripped headlines away from international news, like the falling of the Berlin Wall.
The New Reality of ‘Jane Crow’
An exhausted single mother takes a bath and her five-year-old daughter wanders out of the apartment and is found outside. Instead of being returned to her mother, a neighbor calls Children’s Services and the daughter is put in foster care. For women living in poor neighborhoods with few child care options, a single mistake can lead to a legal nightmare.
The Catastrophe of Success
“Security is a kind of death, I think, and it can come to you in a storm of royalty checks beside a kidney-shaped pool in Beverly Hills or anywhere at all that is removed from the conditions that made you an artist, if that’s what you are or were intended to be.”
On a Remote Greek Island, Learning to Take a ‘Real’ Vacation
In creating a routine “entirely alien to his normal life,” Alexander Chee attempts a real vacation from his work as a writer. As he sketches his way around Sifnos, capturing both the “least famous” Greek island and his memories of it in a Moleskine notebook, he learns how to draw fresh strength to fuel his work.
Prozac Nation Is Now the United States of Xanax
What depression was to the 1990s anxiety is to right now, growing from a medical condition into our national sociological state. What’s happening?