Why Can’t We Agree On What’s True Any More?
It’s not about foreign trolls, filter bubbles or fake news. If there is one thing on which virtually everyone is agreed, it is that the news and information we receive is biased. Technology encourages us to believe we can all have first-hand access to the ‘real’ facts – and now we can’t stop fighting about it.
Catholic Leaders Promised Transparency About Child Abuse. They Haven’t Delivered.
After decades of shielding the identities of accused child abusers from the public, many Catholic leaders are now releasing lists of their names. But the lists are inconsistent, incomplete and omit key details.
The Terrorist Who Got Away
Twenty years ago, India let Masood Azhar go. Now he and his jihadist group may be one of the greatest obstacles to resolving the crisis in Kashmir. Eliminating Azhar and his organization has become a key strategic objective for India’s security establishment.
With a Simple Twist, A ‘Magic’ Material Is Now The Big Thing In Physics
The stunning emergence of a new type of superconductivity with the mere twist of a carbon sheet has left physicists giddy, and its discoverer nearly overwhelmed.
Why Aren’t More Millennials Having Kids And Becoming Parents?
I just got married a few months ago. Once my husband and I entered wedded bliss, we started looking to do married-people things that weren’t in the song: buy a house, get our 401(k)s figured out, assess health-care plans. But the baby in the baby carriage? For now, the kid question hangs between us, unanswered.
Murder at Sutton Place: The True Story Of Joey Comunale’s Death
After the surrogate son—and alleged lover—of New York’s “jeweler to the stars” was involved in a brutal killing, tabloid drama engulfed a swath of the city’s rich and powerful. But what really happened the night of Joey Comunale’s murder?
Kudos, Leaderboards, QOMs: How Fitness App Strava Became A Religion
Strava is a fitness and sports tracking platform that launched in 2009 and bills itself the “number one app for runners and cyclists”. The app offers community, training data and motivation to millions of athletes. Even runners who dislike tech can’t bear to be without it.
The 1968 Sci-Fi That Spookily Predicted Today
In John Brunner’s 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, for instance, he peers ahead to imagine life in 2010, correctly forecasting wearable technology, Viagra, video calls, same-sex marriage, the legalization of cannabis, and the proliferation of mass shootings.
The Secret Behind Coca-Cola’s Marketing Strategy
Coca-Cola is the biggest non-technology company in the world. Originally only selling 7 servings a day, the company has grown slightly, at an estimated rate of more than 1.9 billion servings a day. What’s the secret behind their success?
Army Ranger School Is A Laboratory Of Human Endurance
The military’s toughest training challenges have a lot in common with outdoor sufferfests like the Barkley Marathons and the Leadville Trail 100: you have to be fit and motivated to make the starting line, but your mind and spirit are what carry you to the end.
The Lonely City: Adventures In The Art Of Being Alone
Loneliness is difficult to confess; difficult too to categorize. Like depression, a state with which it often intersects, it can run deep in the fabric of a person, as much a part of one’s being as laughing easily or having red hair.
Mikhail Gorbachev’s Pizza Hut Thanksgiving Miracle
Since his involuntary retirement, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has raised money for worthy causes, attempted to make a comeback in Russian politics, and, notoriously, made an advertisement for Pizza Hut.
What It’s Like To Be A Billionaire’s Butler
The newest trend among the world’ s ultra-rich—like, royalty-grade, private-plane-owning Scrooge McDuck rich—is to have a butler. But what type of person would willingly give over his life to serving the outrageously moneyed?
The Jungle Prince Of Delhi
For 40 years, journalists chronicled the eccentric royal family of Oudh, deposed aristocrats who lived in a ruined palace in the Indian capital. It was a tragic, astonishing story. But was it true?
Who Killed Sweden’s Prime Minister?
Three decades ago, Olof Palme was assassinated on Stockholm’s busiest street. The killer has never been found. Could the discovery of new evidence finally close the case?
What Comes After TV?
A mobile-storytelling platform called Quibi has loomed on the content horizon, promising that, when its app launches this spring, it will be a home to a huge library of short-form shows made specifically for your phone. But Snapchat has been operating in that space for years. It’s harder than you’d think.
The Man Who Walked Backward
When the Great Depression put Plennie Wingo’s bustling Abilene, Texas, cafe out of business, he tried to find fame, fortune, and a sense of meaning the only way he knew how: by embarking on an audacious trip around the world on foot. In reverse.
Psychiatry, Racism, And The Birth Of ‘Sesame Street’
How an African-American psychiatrist helped design a groundbreaking television show as a radical therapeutic tool for helping minority preschoolers.
Creatives Call For Mental-Health Warnings On ‘Toxic’ Magazines
A creative team in London is hijacking the covers of celebrity and gossip magazines to raise awareness of the harmful impact that media can have on people’s mental health. They were inspired by news that hair salons across the UK have boycotted “toxic” gossip magazines following the death of presenter Caroline Flack.
The Green Dream Of Portland
Decades ago, Portland, Oregon established an image as the most environmentally friendly city in the world. But is the progressive city’s progress still too slow? “We haven’t done a good enough job of influencing the thousands of new people who have moved here, making it clear to them that biking and walking are the way to go.”
Missouri Charmer Led Double Life, Masterminded One Of The Biggest Frauds In Farm History
Like all the best con artists, Randy Constant was a charmer, hard not to like. You’d never have guessed that the father of three, grandfather of five was a liar, cheat and serial philanderer who masterminded one of the biggest and longest-running frauds in the history of American agriculture.