"This is a story about just that—what God thinks. It’s also a story of identity and exposure, of revenge and public humiliation. Of deep love and senseless loss, and the unending grief of a small town."
"But instead I head to my mall suite, take off my meatball T-shirt, and allow the first tears of the cruise to roll down my cheeks slowly enough that I briefly fall asleep amid the moisture and salt."
"Freed from the blinding incandescence of my own name, I could suddenly see the extent of what I had stumbled into. It was like the scene in a thriller when the detective first gazes on the wall of a serial killer’s lair."
"Black was a gesture of solidarity, whereas non-white was a term of exclusion. To be called non-white was to be defined in the negative, Biko argued, defined by what you weren’t. To choose black was to define yourself in the positive." —Eula Biss for The Believer.
• How Israel uses AI for assassination in the Gaza War
• A father reflects on his son’s development
• The rise of the term, “gaslighting”
• Toni Morrison’s expansive rejection letters
• The history of PostSecret
Learn why our editors have recommended these pieces and find out which story our audience loved most.
"Lavender has played a central role in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the war. In fact, according to the sources, its influence on the military’s operations was such that they essentially treated the outputs of the AI machine 'as if it were a human decision.'" —Yuval Abraham for +972 Magazine / Local Call
"Into a black sheath attached to his belt he slid a short sword, 17 inches long, etched with the words “THOT SLAYER” (THOT is an acronym for That Ho Over There, a slur sometimes used for women, especially sex workers). Then he left home." —Lana Hall for Maclean's
Andrew "Huberman sells a dream of control down to the cellular level. But something has gone wrong. In the midst of immense fame, a chasm has opened between the podcaster preaching dopaminergic restraint and a man, with newfound wealth, with access to a world unseen by most professors." —Kerry Howley for New York Magazine
"After his exhibit closed, the postcards took over Frank’s life. Hundreds poured into his mailbox, week after week. He decided to create a website, PostSecret, where every Sunday he uploaded images of postcards he’d received in the mail." —Meg Bernhard for Hazlitt
"A thought came into my head, momentarily paralyzing me: these might be your last few minutes. My clumsy gloved hands scrabbled uselessly at the edges of the neoprene trapping me in the boat. As I realized I couldn’t release the spray skirt that way either, panic, regret, and sorrow flooded my brain." For @longreads, Maggie Slepian relates her near-death experience and its aftermath.
Vice crashed and burned in February, after falling in slow motion for years. @verge takes a look at the chaos behind the scenes as staff tried to keep the lights on: Unpaid freelancers, sky-high expenses and salaries for execs, no discernible strategy, and at the heart of it all, founder Shane Smith.
"In his life, Bob brought a sense of awe and wonder to many. His death has prompted a much-needed conversation about how humans and elk can share the same home. Many more elk will die on our roads this year. None will be as famous as Bob, but each one will be a life lost, and endanger human lives in the process." —Emma Gilchrist for @thenarwhal
-Heart-warming tales of missed connections—found again
-The Army veteran who ended a mass shooting
-Nine perspectives on the prescription drug, Adderall
-The keepers of the eider duck
-A Moby Dick pilgrimage
"The Bag Man is in his 70s—balding, bearded, a little curt—and he walks (others say “stalks”) the “L” Trail five to six mornings of the week in an oversized jacket, armed with multi-colored rolls of plastic pet poop bags he buys by the box on Amazon. He doesn’t have a dog." —Jacob Baynham for The Pulp
"A duckling snatched by a hungry gull might seem no more than a brutal reality of nature, but to this 57-year-old Norwegian, the common eider ... is a beloved friend." —Devon Fredericksen for bioGraphic, reprinted by Hakai magazine. #longreadshttps://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-eider-keepers/?src=longreads
"As I watched Max walk off with a group of foreign strangers into an unknown land, it felt like a glimpse of my future, and his. I was slowing down, and he was speeding up."
"Two centuries ago, the person you met eyes with at the theatre probably read the same high society journal that you did. Today, what are the chances that the girl on the train platform also uses Craigslist, and will check it at exactly the right time: not before, but after you’ve posted?" —Amelia Tait for The Guardian
"I made a wish on a monkey’s paw for more and better work and some capitalist fairy godmother granted it to me. With it came a new problem: Showing up wouldn’t cut it anymore. I would have to be productive."