“‘I feel like I’m still there,’ a Marine told me. ‘I feel like everything that happened, happened five minutes ago.’” Reporting for Task & Purpose, Haley Britzky spoke to 15 soldiers, Marines, and airmen who were part of the Afghanistan withdrawal mission in August 2021. It’s a difficult read, but also a raw and visceral account […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
What Happened to Rezwan
“On the last day of Rezwan Kohistani’s life, he ate lunch alone.”
Posted inNewsletter
Where Truffles Thrive, the Week’s Top 5, and a Member Drive
“Before we became such a complex profusion of cells, we were driven by chemical impulse, which a truffle knows better than anyone. That’s why they fetch the prices they do. Why animals will harm themselves to unearth a fruit. Why truffle hunters are poisoning one another’s dogs. Why suspected truffle thieves in French orchards get […]
Posted inNonfiction
‘Are We Breaking Apart, Or Is There Enough Left to Bind Us?’
Conversations and revelations about an ailing nation along Interstate 95.
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Showcasing stories from Nicholas Hune-Brown, Nick Sturm, Samanth Subramanian, Kristin Idaszak, and Sy Safransky.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Unsettled: The Afghan Refugee Crisis Collides with the American Housing Disaster
Part of The Verge‘s Homeland series, this feature by Makena Kelly on resettlement programs in the U.S. shows what Afghan families are facing from day to day, particularly in communities of the San Francisco Bay Area where the housing crisis is dire. Ongoing support and aid comes from local nonprofits, overworked volunteers, and generous families […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Year Mahbuba Found Her Voice
“The young refugee from Afghanistan arrived on the doorstep of a Chicago school. She was deaf and had no previous exposure to formal sign language. What happened next was transformative.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Few Good Men
“Jordan Neely’s killer and the racist violence at the heart of the American imperial project.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Airport
Journalist Shannon Gormley weaves an astonishing narrative and beautifully written (and at times, very personal) meditation on one family’s escape out of Afghanistan as Kabul fell to the Taliban. I’d never written Asghar’s story as I’d said I would, and I’d buried the thought of contacting him, too, until foreign sections of newspapers began to […]
Posted inUncategorized
How to Love a Swamp (and Our Top 5)
“But here’s the thing about swamps: They don’t go down easy. Swamps don’t protest, they insist.” I recently completed a road trip across the Canadian prairies, traveling through the mountains to the southwestern coast of British Columbia. I was relaxed at the wheel, and I enjoyed the chance to think, unencumbered even by radio stations along […]
