“Before Ryan Wedding landed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list as a high-level associate of El Chapo, he was a bright-eyed kid from Thunder Bay. The inside story of how an Olympic snowboarding prodigy became one of the world’s most dangerous and powerful drug lords.”
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The Mercy Workers
“For three decades, a little-known group of ‘mitigation specialists’ has helped save death-penalty defendants by documenting their childhood traumas. A rare look inside one case.”
The Smallest Victims: Why Does America Keep Allowing Toddlers to Shoot Themselves?
“Nearly every day, a child unintentionally fires a gun and injures or kills someone. It’s one of the most preventable forms of gun violence—but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to solve.”
‘We Deserve So Much More Than Police, Prisons, and Jails’: Scalawag Takes On Emmy-Winning Television
We recommend these incisive essays on Abbott Elementary, The White Lotus, and The Dropout in Scalawag’s series on pop culture and justice.
Chrishona Hodges’s Life Sentence
“At a crossroads when Chicago profiled him nine years ago, Jerryon Stevens is now in jail, awaiting trial on a murder charge. At home, his mother reckons with her son’s path — and tries to hold her fractured family together.”
Experiences in Groups
“The more you can perceive, the more choice you will have about how to respond.”
After the Hit-and-Run
“Can restorative justice offer crash victims like me—and the drivers who harmed us—the healing we need?”
Our Sister’s Netflix Hit and the Week’s Top 5
“But all was not well in the house on the corner of Lincoln Road and 52nd Street. It belonged to Dennis and Brenda Bowman, a married couple with two children. For the Bowmans, March 11 marked the last time they saw their 14-year-old daughter, Aundria, alive.” We’ve got some big news this week from our […]
Help Us Stay a Home for the Weird
“Invite writers and readers in—magic will follow.” Six years ago, I published my first essay as an editor for Longreads. Margot Harris’s “Under the Knife” opens with a scene of cupcakes shaped like private parts (and goes on to discuss the guilt of having cosmetic surgery as a feminist). What a privilege, I thought at […]
Parks and Degradation: The Mess at Yosemite
“Chemical spills, a ceiling collapse, indoor bears. Employees and park superfans blame the hospitality company Aramark.”

