From Mark Schrad for Politico: "Of the dozens of vodka factories strung across Russia’s 11 time zones, the crown jewel of the Russian liquor industry is the Kristall distillery in Moscow, birthplace of the world-famous Stolichnaya brand. Founded in 1901 as “Moscow State Wine Warehouse No. 1,” the
Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. Before we begin, I realize that the "year-end round-up" newsletter has become so ubiquitous that you may have no room in your life for another one. But the round-up has become a time-tested tradition in the media business for some pretty compelling reasons
From TheForce.net: "Here's how that came about: My co-producer was Tony Bongiovi. Jon Bon Jovi was his little cousin and by little I mean we were all in our 30s and early 40s but Jon at that time was 17 years old. And we were in
From Brenna Ehrlich for Rolling Stone: "After Adele Mazzone died at age 74 of complications from a stroke, her remains had been handed over to Harvard as part of the Anatomical Gift Program, a donation-based initiative in which people can leave their bodies to the school for students to
From Kathy Gilsinan at Politico: "It was the spring of 2012 and nearly three weeks had passed since police had marched Rita Crundwell, the town’s well-liked comptroller, out the door of that very same building in handcuffs. In that time, the magnitude of her betrayal had grown clearer,
From The Intercept: "Only a few bones remained and there was no clear cause of death. In the realm of murder cases gone cold, this was a challenging one — even for Kelly Siegler, a veteran prosecutor from Texas, with a nearly perfect conviction record and an evangelical fervor for
From Gareth Edwards at Every: "In September 1974, Ed Roberts was sitting at the bank in a foreclosure meeting. His once-profitable calculator company, Micro Instrument and Telemetry Systems, was on the verge of bankruptcy. But Roberts was soliciting a $65,000 loan. Not to spend on calculators, he explained
From Mike Baker for the New York Times: "In the minutes before he boarded an Alaska Airlines flight home, Joseph Emerson, a pilot for the airline, texted his wife and said he missed her. The flight was full, and Emerson was off duty, so he settled into the cockpit
From Lorraine Boissoneault for The Smithsonian: "When tulips came to the Netherlands, all the world went mad. A sailor who mistook a rare tulip bulb for an onion and ate it with his herring sandwich was charged with a felony and thrown in prison. A bulb named Semper Augustus
From the Washington Post: "At some point, Erik McIntyre inhaled the fungal spores. He couldn’t see them, or feel them, and it was weeks before he began to lose energy, to drop weight, to cough up blood at a karaoke bar in Arizona. Now he’s paralyzed from
From Amitha Kalaichandran for Undark: "In May, I was invited to take part in a survey by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to better delineate how long Covid is described and diagnosed as part of The National Research Action Plan on Long Covid. The survey had
From Sarah Viren for the New York Times: "Liz Flatt drove to Austin mostly out of desperation. She had tried talking with the police. She had tried working with a former F.B.I. profiler who ran a nonprofit dedicated to solving unsolved murders. She had been interviewed by