Tag: originals

The former Dallas police chief is familiar with loss: Violence took his son, younger brother, and former partner. His response to the killing of five officers last July was inspiring. He’s not done giving back.

While snowed in on the West Coast, Frances Badalamenti grapples alone with her father’s death on the other side of what feels like a dying country.

On the longevity of Maria Sharapova, who has built a brand beyond the bounds of her tennis stardom that has made her incredibly wealthy, but still striving for more.

On journeys to Rikers Island in New York City and Robben Island in South Africa, Roohi Choudhry examines issues of incarceration and racism, and envisions a day when the convicted are no longer exiled to penal colonies.

The rickety ’98 Volvo wagon didn’t look like much, but it provided Debbie Weingarten and her children safe passage to a new life.

For Alex DiFrancesco, coming out as transgender—even to themself—wasn’t possible without first disappearing.

A filmmaker travels the U.S. and Canada to speak with Indigenous women about the constant threats to their safety and their lives.

How a difficult to obtain American double IPA brewed in a small town in Vermont developed a world-wide cult following, with beer fans traveling hundreds of miles just to get a taste.

Breaking up is hard to do.

“Despite the headlines that came after the election calling this country ‘Trump’s America’—and there were many—I won’t call it that, or see it that way. And regardless of your politics I’ll ask you to join me. This is our America. It’s our America to write in, and our America to write.”

Why would a tenure-track professor find himself selling his plasma to make rent? A story about debt in the academic world.

On a girls’ road trip to Savannah with six of her immigrant friends, Anjali Enjeti recalls a traumatic racist incident she experienced as a teen—an interaction that framed her understanding of her otherness, in Georgia, and America.

The most influential large-scale political action of the ’60s was actually in 1971, and you’ve never heard of it. It was called the Mayday action, and it provides invaluable lessons for today.

In 1996, David Foster Wallace profiled tennis player Michael Joyce in one of the most celebrated pieces of sports writing ever published. Who has he become since?

Here are the 25 most popular exclusives we published this year.

How learning to swim at 24 led Syam Palakurthy to first-hand lessons in gentrification.

Twenty-five years ago, Meier turned human history into a video game, and sold 33 million copies along the way. With the launch of Civilization VI, Kanishk Tharoor takes a closer look at its impact.

Years after spending a romantic month alone with a young photographer, Stephanie Land learns of his crippling chronic disease–and gets a glimpse of how much she meant to him.

How “Vaudeville’s worst act” fought for fame and respect on the stage.

Eighty years ago, in Berlin, Stella Walsh won her second Olympic medal. Decades later, Walsh’s murder and subsequent autopsy threw the legacy of track’s first female superstar into turmoil.

The reversible destiny of Madeline Gins.

A close examination of the wilderness icon’s early travels reveal a deep love for trees, and some ugly feelings about people.

Melissa Gilbert’s lost bid for Congress and the forgotten political history of ‘Little House on the Prairie.’

As an avid solo traveler—and proponent of the empowerment traveling alone can offer women—Laura Yan has been conflicted about revealing she was raped in Bolivia.

When her challenging, cancer-ridden mother suffers a psychotic break, Jane Demuth searches for the wherewithal to help the person who once demanded the most of her.

Inspired by her governess, the radical feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, Margaret King cast aside her immense privilege, cross-dressed as a man to go to medical school, and inspired a new generation of women to push against the rigid conventions of their era.

Half a century ago, the Hall of New York State Environment in the American Museum of Natural History was not only the future of museum design, but also, one man hoped, the future of democracy itself.

Artist and illustrator Maira Kalman on mistakes, optimism, and how art (and dogs) warm the soul.

Sherry Turkle studies how we relate to our devices, and thinks it’s high time we start talking to each other again.

Game designer Jane McGonigal argues that playing games can help us develop skills for life.