Canadians Adopted Refugee Families for a Year. Then Came ‘Month 13.’

It’s a year-long commitment to privately sponsor a Syrian refugee family in Canada, where sponsorship includes funding and helping the family navigate Canadian culture and society. Sponsors assist newcomers with daily tasks of living, including grocery shopping, banking, getting jobs, learning English, and ferrying families to appointments and activities. In the fourth and final installment of Refugees WelcomeThe New York Times’ year-long series on Syrian refugees in Canada — Jodi Kantor and Catrin Einhorn profile the Hajj family and members of their sponsorship group, reporting on what happens at month 13 — the point at which the sponsorship agreement officially ends.

Published: Mar 25, 2017
Length: 17 minutes (4,443 words)

Team Plagiarizes Golden State Warriors. Team Is Undefeated.

Perennial junior college basketball power South Plains college finished the 2015-16 season with a 21-9 record—too uneven for head coach Steve Green. As Scott Cacciola details in this exhaustively thorough piece about SPC, which is undefeated and about to begin its path to ‘Hutch’ (shorthand for Hutchinson, Kansas, where the juco national title game is held every year), Green remade his squad in the image of the Golden State Warriors. The Texans even have their own version of Draymond Green (Brooklyn’s Jahlil Tripp) and Steph Curry (Jordan Brangers)—but no Kevin Durant (yet). As Green tells Cacciola, “I just want guys who can shoot now. If you have somebody on the floor who can’t score, you’re playing four against five. They just don’t guard them.”

Published: Mar 2, 2017
Length: 7 minutes (1,964 words)

Killing of a Young Woman Grips Iceland

Iceland’s crime rates aren’t typically plagued with carnage—an average of two people are murdered per year—which why the case of Birna Brjansdottir, a 20-year-old sales associate who disappeared after a night out in Reykjavik in early January and whose body was recently found on a beach south of the city, has thrown the country into a tailspin. There have been no arrests so far, though two sailors from Greenland (a country with similarly low crime statistics) have been questioned, so come for the still-unfolding murder mystery and stay for the Viking SWAT Team, the special ops group that features prominently in the investigation.

Published: Jan 23, 2017
Length: 4 minutes (1,200 words)

When the National Bird Is a Burden

The bald eagle has long been a symbol of pride and freedom in the United States. But for one family farm in Georgia, it’s a real nuisance.

Published: Jan 19, 2017
Length: 14 minutes (3,603 words)

Who Decides Who Counts as Native American?

Brooke Jarvis chronicles the legal battle over the “Nooksack 306,” members of the tribe who were disenrolled over questions about their identity.

Published: Jan 18, 2017
Length: 29 minutes (7,340 words)

Joe Biden: ‘I Wish to Hell I’d Just Kept Saying the Exact Same Thing’

The vice president looks back — and forward. Veteran journalist Jonathan Alter’s exit interview with Joe Biden.

Published: Jan 17, 2017
Length: 8 minutes (2,163 words)

Obama’s Secret to Surviving the White House Years: Books

A profile of Barack Obama as a reader, which includes a link to Kakutani’s 3,015-word interview with the outgoing president. He  discusses his love for reading, some authors he loves–plus short stories he’s written.

Published: Jan 16, 2017
Length: 8 minutes (2,018 words)

One Man’s Quest to Change the Way We Die

A profile of Dr. B.J. Miller, a triple amputee whose own near-death experience in college–and his return to life afterward–inform his approach to palliative care.

Published: Jan 3, 2017
Length: 33 minutes (8,250 words)

The Fighter

The story of Sam Siatta, a Marine Corps veteran of the war in Afghanistan who returned home with PTSD and landed in prison after committing a crime he says he doesn’t remember.

Published: Dec 28, 2016
Length: 73 minutes (18,429 words)

The Great A.I. Awakening

The story of how Google’s developed artificial intelligence to vastly improve its translation service, Google Translate, and what machine learning might be able to do in the near future.

Published: Dec 14, 2016
Length: 60 minutes (15,174 words)