I'm the chief digital writer for the Columbia Journalism Review
From Emmie Goldberg for the NYT: "There is an adage that says there are no atheists in foxholes — even skeptics will pray when facing death. But Hancock, in the time leading up to his execution, only became more insistent about his nonbelief. He and his chaplain were both confident
From Daniel Rennie for Bold Entrance: "The biggest villain in Gotham isn’t the Joker, but Batman’s creator himself, Bob Kane. In the years following Batman’s first appearance in May 1939, Kane became almost as famous as the Caped Crusader himself. But Kane wasn’t responsible for
From Maxine Bernstein for Oregon Live: "Husband-and-wife chauffeurs are accused of stealing $34 million from wealthy publisher Win McCormack over seven years. Sergey Lebedenko and his wife, Galina provided rides to McCormack through their limousine service and then made unauthorized charges of up to $34 million to his American
From Alan Prendergast for WestWord: "Located a hundred miles southwest of Denver, just outside the high-desert town of Florence, ADX houses more than 300 terrorists, gang leaders, drug lords and other high-risk prisoners. Its guest list includes Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols and shoe bomber Richard Reid, and
From the New York Times: "It was the kind of tragic accident that reverberates through a community: a first-year college student, out late in New York City on New Year’s Eve, falls onto the subway tracks and is killed by an oncoming train. Word of the 19-year-old’s
From Jonathan Nunn for The Guardian: "If you were a young person living in London in the early 1970s and you were looking for a bargain, the word of Nicholas Saunders was something close to holy scripture. Whatever you sought, Saunders had the answer. If you wanted to start
By Kevin Hazzard for The Atavist: "Today the role is clearly defined: A paramedic is certified to practice advanced emergency medical care outside a hospital setting. They’re the people who shock hearts back into beating, insert breathing tubes into tracheas, and deliver pharmaceuticals intravenously whenever and wherever a
From NPR: "The strange journey of Einstein's brain began on the evening of April 17, 1955, when the seventy-six-year-old physicist was admitted to Princeton Hospital complaining of chest pains. He died early the next morning of a burst aortic aneurysm. As in the cases of Carl Gauss
From Alex Morris for Rolling Stone: "After seeing the pictures, Bolen asked to meet. While a lot of the men Paulina had encountered in chatrooms like “Sex With Younger” just wanted to trade images and videos of children, Bolen was a “traveler,” someone looking to act upon his obsessions.
From Marginal Revolution: "The NYC police union gives out what are called 'courtesy cards' to friends and family, who use them to get easy treatment if they are pulled over by a cop. The cards even come in gold, silver and bronze. An officer who is presented
From Andrew Keh for the NYT: "Ed Martin III was 14 years old when he began working at his father’s pet cemetery, and in the decades since he has tended to the graves of innumerable dogs, many cats, flocks of birds, a few monkeys, a lion cub, a
From Thomas Lake for CNN: "Johnny Gosch left home for the last time on a warm Sunday in late summer, in the pale morning light before sunrise. Just before 6 a.m., a neighbor heard a wagon rattling through the yard and figured it was Johnny taking his usual