If traumatic brain injuries can impact the parts of the brain responsible for personality, judgment, and impulse control, maybe injury should be a mitigating factor in criminal trials — but one neuroscientist discovers that assigning crime a biological basis creates more issues than it solves.
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Ian Frisch, Niela Orr, Alison Fensterstock, Jill Lepore, and Austin Carr.
A Town Split By a Play About the 1980s AIDS Epidemic
Sometimes art can challenge viewers enough to change them. Sometimes art just makes the narrow-minded angry.
A Stimulus Plan for the Mutual Aid Economy
Policymakers’ neglect of caregiving harms a major force in American labor.
When It Comes to the Climate Crisis, Don’t Forget the Power of the States
Even with the federal government in chaos, there’s still plenty of opportunity to solve a global problem.
Tax the Rich
In this economy, what’s a fair share?
How the Pacheco Family Pivoted From Baking Bread to Burying the Bodies
“For now, though, he has no plans to become a baker again.”
We’re Not All in This Together
When the only way to be a real community is to be apart, it quickly becomes obvious who is out for themselves.
Written On the Body: One Family’s History
“We, as family, got so much from their trash. I never wanted to forget that I was the janitor’s kid before I was anything else.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Jody Rosen, Reeves Wiedeman, Rebecca Liu, Sara Rimer, and Will Hodge.

