“Until then, the Health Department had sought to track down sick children and refer them to physicians, a mostly futile endeavor in the days before antibiotics and modern medicine. Baker decided that the new bureau’s mission would instead be prevention. The city had an established and efficient system of birth registration. As soon as a […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
Almost Without Hope: The State of Health Care on the Rosebud Indian Reservation
Native Americans were promised health care by the government, but what are they really getting? A visit to the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where health services are underfunded, suicide rates are high, and the life expectancy is just 46 years: It’s well-documented that the government’s attempts to meet its obligations to the Native […]
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Story
Rainy Season
Two young sisters living in Thailand sneak off their diplomatic compound for a night of beauty and danger in this spellbinding short story.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
When Stressing Over Social Status Becomes Toxic
In Stanford Magazine, Kristin Sainani talks to researchers in psychiatry and behavioral science to examine the causes of stress and the differences between “good” stress (i.e. the short-term stress of working on deadline that is later paid off by the euphoric sense of accomplishment) and “bad” stress (i.e. chronic stress). Here, a health psychologist discusses […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
The Art of Running from the Police
A young man concerned that the police will take him into custody comes to see danger and risk in the mundane doings of everyday life. To survive outside prison, he learns to hesitate when others walk casually forward, to see what others fail to notice, to fear what others trust or take for granted.
Posted inNonfiction, Story
The Vanishing: What Happened to the Thousands Still Missing in Mexico?
More than 23,000 people have gone missing during Mexico’s drug wars. Every year, their families make a trek to Monterrey seeking answers.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
A Moment of Zen: Seven Stories Looking Back at Jon Stewart’s Fake-News Legacy
Tonight, Jon Stewart ends his 16-year run as host of “The Daily Show.” Here are seven stories looking back at how Stewart became the most influential fake-news anchor in the history of television.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Plot From Solitary
Four men from rival gangs launch a hunger strike protesting the conditions of solitary confinement: The severity of his isolation meant that as the strike began, Ashker had little idea of what effect it was having or how many other prisoners had decided to join him. It turned out to be the largest coordinated hunger […]
Posted inNonfiction
Borges and $: The Parable of the Literary Master and the Coin
Thirty years ago, the world lost a great literary mind—the Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. Today, Elizabeth Hyde Stevens revisits the financial conditions that produced this life of pure literature, finding unexpected hope in the darkest period of Borges’ forgotten past.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
My Dinner With Rasputin
Writing in 1924, Teffi, a Russian writer in exile known for her wit, recalls a series of humorous (but increasingly ominous) encounters with the trusted friend of the last Tsar of Russia.
