Stories

2023

December 18, 2023:
A violent clash of football haves and have-nots

October 22, 2023:
Bob Lee’s Murder Shook San Francisco. What Really Happened?

September 29, 2023:
How the private equity firm buying Everton built its business

May 4, 2023:
This Nationwide Theft Ring Allegedly Brought In Half A Billion Dollars From Stolen Catalytic Converters

March 7, 2023:
Abdul Sharifu Was Buying Milk For A Neighbor’s Baby. A Snowstorm Killed Him.

January 31, 2023
They Used To Skate With Tyre Nichols In Middle School. They Gathered Together To Grieve Him.

January 28, 2023
The SCORPION Unit That Killed Tyre Nichols Was Formed To Target High Crime Areas. But Locals Say His Neighborhood Was “Peaceful.”

January 24, 2023
Pickup Basketball Was My Outlet. Then I Tore My Achilles.

2022

November 7, 2022
Living On Less Than $15 An Hour

November 3, 2022
Little America: The Mentalist (podcast episode)

October 24, 2022
Tom Brady And The Selfishness Of Conventional Masculinity

October 2, 2022
Tua Tagovailoa’s Injury Exposes The NFL’s Priorities

August 18, 2022

The Only Way For Some People To Stay In San Francisco Is To Steal

August 9, 2022
Manti Te’o, The Internet’s Most Notorious Catfishing Victim, Has Finally Spoken

June 23, 2022
How Amazon Exported American Working Conditions To Europe

April 21, 2022
After Working In Fast Food For 16 Years, She Went On Strike For The First Time

January 11, 2022
They Fed America During Lockdown. Nearly Two Years Later, Many Grocery Workers Can’t Make Ends Meet.

2021

October 13, 2021:
Tracing the Filipino Diaspora in the Arc of the Global Age: A Reading List

March 12, 2021:
My Mom Believes In QAnon. I’ve Been Trying To Get Her Out.

January 14, 2021:
Some Black Officers Say Their Departments Ignored Their White Colleagues’ Radicalization

2020

December 30, 2020:
A Secretive Company Needed To Convince Washington That Congo’s Election Would Be “Free And Fair.” It Found A Friendly Ear Among Trump Allies.

September 16, 2020:
These Two Lawyers Face Up To Life In Prison For Allegedly Burning An Empty Cop Car

July 4, 2020:
How A July 4th Meal Exposes The Coronavirus Risk For Thousands Of US Food Workers

June 29, 2020:
My Uncle Spanky, the Rock Star Who Left It All Behind (Pop-Up Magazine video)

April 20, 2020:
Smithfield Foods Is Blaming “Living Circumstances In Certain Cultures” For One Of America’s Largest COVID-19 Clusters

April 10, 2020:
Despite The New Coronavirus Law, Workers At These Big Companies Say They Still Must Work Sick Or Lose Pay

March 26, 2020:
Starbucks Employees Got Sick, Starbucks Stores Stayed Open: Inside a week of fear, confusion, and coughing at branches around the country before the coffee giant took decisive action.

March 20, 2020: 
A Letter From The Front Lines Of The Coronavirus Outbreak

March 18, 2020:
These Retailers Have Been Staying Open. Employees Say They’re Afraid For Themselves And Others.

March 12, 2020:
People Inside America’s First Coronavirus Containment Zone Are Confused And Angry

2018

June 20, 2018:
A White Cop Shot A Black Man, Then He Sued The City For Racial Discrimination: After fatal shootings, police officers may lose their jobs, but they rarely get prison time. This cop walked away with a settlement.

June 5, 2018:
“How would this be treated now?” — Why A Doctor Accused Of Sexually Abusing 19 Patients Got No Jail Time: Prosecutors told Robert A. Hadden’s patients his guilty plea was a win for victims, but the #MeToo movement has some questioning the Manhattan district attorney’s motives.

March 23, 2018:
She Thought She’d Shot A Burglar. Then She Realized It Was Her Roommate: Good guys with guns don’t only shoot bad guys. At least 47 times since 2015, a person has shot a friend, family member, or emergency responder they mistook for an intruder in their home.

February 7, 2018:
“Police aren’t supposed to be doing this”: When Anna said she was raped by two on-duty cops, she thought it would be a simple case. She had no idea she lived in one of 35 states where officers can claim a detainee consented.

January 30, 2018:
Can A School Ban Its Students From Kneeling During The National Anthem?: With the Super Bowl days away, one high school quarterback is taking a stand for free speech.

2017

October 26, 2017:
The Town Without A Hate Crime: Indiana is one of five states without hate crime laws. A brutal attack and the frightening aftermath shows how the absence of this legislation leaves victims feeling abandoned.

September 22, 2017:
“They Can’t Fire You For What’s In Your Head” — Why A Cop With A Tattoo That Looks Like A Nazi Symbol Is Still On The Job: What beliefs disqualify someone from working as a cop? The case of one Philadelphia officer shows how free speech is being put to the test in police departments.

September 4, 2017:
This DREAMer And His Friend Drowned Trying To Rescue Houston Flood Victims

September 3, 2017:
“I Don’t Wanna See No More Water”: LaTanya Stewart never returned to her New Orleans home after it was destroyed by Katrina. While much of Houston was in the midst of recovery, she went back to her new home for the first time to find the damage Harvey had wrought.

August 18, 2017:
“We Are Living In Fear”: When Balbir Singh Sodhi was murdered in a hate crime days after 9/11, his family didn’t lose faith in the United States. They didn’t expect the violence to only get worse.

June 6, 2017:
The Kids Are Alt-Right: BuzzFeed News reviewed more than 50 reports of school bullying since the election and found that kids nationwide are using Trump’s words to taunt their classmates. If the president can say those things, why can’t they?

May 31, 2017:
Wrong or Righteous: I went back to the Philippines to see the farm my family left behind, and to try to understand why they — and most of the country — have rallied around a president most Westerners see as a violent, dangerous despot.

May 20, 2017:
“It’s White Protectionism”: As black and brown people leave major cities to raise families in areas that were once predominantly white, they’re encountering police departments that are slow to reflect those population shifts and all too eager to placate longtime white residents who equate change with rising crime.

April 12, 2017:
Why Police Departments Around The Country Are Taking TV Viewers On Ride-Alongs: On Friday and Saturday nights, A&E’s “Live PD” takes viewers on live ride-alongs with police departments around the country. But does it really show what it’s like to be a cop?

March 21, 2017:
Why William Varnado Lied: More wrongful convictions are being overturned than ever before, thanks in part to witnesses coming forward. But in New Orleans, recanting witnesses are facing perjury charges, creating a chilling effect that could keep innocent people behind bars.

January 17, 2017:
Blue Lies Matter: BuzzFeed News reviewed 62 examples of video footage contradicting an officer’s statement in a police report or testimony. From traffic stops to fatal force, these cases reveal how cops are incentivized to lie — and why they get away with it.

2016

November 16, 2016:
“A Matter of Time”: Carlos Carromero served 10 years in prison for shooting and paralyzing a man in 1984. After the victim died from related injuries 29 years later, should Carromero have been charged with his murder?

November 9, 2016:
Philadelphia Couldn’t Stop Trump: “There’s a lot of people in this country who don’t care about us.”

September 14, 2016:
Three Sheldons: Years ago, his grandfather set in motion a cycle of imprisonment that has trapped his family. Now Sheldon Johnson must carry the burden of his name.

August 2, 2016:
Law Vs. Order: District Attorney Kari Brandenburg took on her own police department. Then she lost everything. This is a story about the growing rift between prosecutors and police in post-Ferguson America.

July 18, 2016:
Baton Rouge Mayor Calls Claims Of Police Racial Profiling “Bullshit”

May 19, 2016:
The Short Life Of Deonte Hoard, The 53rd Person Murdered In Chicago In 2015: Shot and killed just shy of his 18th birthday, Deonte Hoard was one of 489 homicide victims in Chicago last year. How this happened — and how it keeps happening — is both one person’s story and the story of how a community has been forced to adjust to murder as an everyday fact of life.

April 11, 2016:
“Machinery of Denial” — How Chicago protects cops involved in lethal shootings: Chicago police officer Gil Sierra shot three black men in six months and stayed on the force. This is how the city with more police shootings than any other in America circles its wagons.

January 13, 2016:
“Don’t Ever Tell Us What You Saw”: In January 2015, a prison bus carrying 15 men — three guards and 12 chained-together inmates — ran off the road. It was one of the bloodiest days in the history of Texas prisons.

2015

November 18, 2015:
“This Is What They Did For Fun” — A Modern-Day Lynching: Craig Anderson was headed home to celebrate his birthday with his partner. Instead, he became the victim of a brutal and violent form of racism that many in Mississippi had thought long gone.

September 30, 2015:
“I Killed Him Because He Was Snitching”: Metro Narcotics in Oxford, Mississippi, makes frequent use of college-age informants. Chris Bland claims he murdered one of them for being a “snitch.”

August 30, 2015:
The Prison Guard Who Couldn’t Escape Prison: Scott Jones loved being a correctional officer at California’s High Desert State Prison. Then he watched his colleagues commit enough abuses that he saw no choice but to break the code of silence, turning himself into a pariah in a neighborhood called CO Row.

August 13, 2015:
Indefensible: Before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans didn’t even have a full-time public defender program. The one they built remains overwhelmed and underfunded.

June 21, 2015:
“The Doors Of The Church Are Open”: Hundreds gathered at Mother Emanuel on Sunday for the first service since nine parishioners were killed in the church’s basement.

May 14, 2015:
Breaking Baltimore’s Blue Wall of Silence: Detective Joe Crystal watched a fellow officer beat up a handcuffed suspect. After he broke ranks and reported the assault, he was run out of town, his career ruined. During his former city’s most chaotic week, he went back.

May 1, 2015:
Freddie Gray’s Old Neighborhood Celebrates Charges Against Baltimore Police

April 30, 2015:
Looted Baltimore Corner Store Witnessed Part Of Gray’s Final Journey

April 29, 2015:
Calm Follows Chaos In Baltimore

April 20, 2015:
How Mississippi Discovered The Drug War’s “Golden Egg”: A small-town narcotics unit has built a team of confidential informants by arresting low-level-offender college students and pressuring them to flip.

March 23, 2015:
Exonerated And Out Of Prison—And That’s When The Trouble Starts: Scores of former convicts are exonerated every year, and the number is growing. But for Clarence Harrison and many others, walking out of the pen with a clear name and cash for all the years lost doesn’t mean living happily ever after.

March 9, 2015:
Three Shootings In Vallejo: Residents of a Bay Area town wonder how one police officer could gun down three men in five months and earn a promotion.

January 29, 2015:
A Bronx Betrayal: Calvin Buari’s former crew put him in prison. Prosecutors and detectives made sure he stayed there.

2014

December 19, 2014:
“I Can Breathe! ‘Cause I Don’t Steal!”: At the latest demonstration, NYPD supporters gathered on one side of the fence, counter-protesters on the other. It got heated.

December 5, 2014:
The Prison Reform Blues: Chris Epps wanted to reform Mississippi’s harsh, decrepit prison system. Now he’s facing three centuries in the slammer.

November 12, 2014:
All the Young Jews: Welcome to the Village of Kiryas Joel, where the median age is 13, and the older generation causes all the fuss.

October 28, 2014:
Reynaldo Nazario Knew How to Do One Thing Really Well: Steal Cars

August 5, 2014:
The Tragedy of Louis Scarcella: How the face of NYC’s tough-on-crime era went from supercop to scapegoat.

June 10, 2014:
The Prisoner’s Daughter: Amanda Rosario hopes this is the last time she’ll have to get her hopes up.

May 6, 2014:
Who Were Those Masked Men, Anyway?:  They disguised themselves as white cops, knocked over a check-cashing joint, and got away with $200k — almost.

March 11, 2014:
Over the Volcano: Stranded and Hallucinating in a Hawaiian Snowstorm

January 22, 2014:
The Barrons of East New York: Charles and Inez Barron Aren’t Your Traditional Power Couple

2013

December 4, 2013:
Bad Rabbi: Tales of Extortion and Torture Depict a Divorce Broker’s Brutal Grip on the Orthodox Community

November 6, 2013:
One Foot on the Turf, One Foot in the Streets: An Imperiled Pop Warner Program Still Draws Middle Class Families to Brownsville

August 7, 2013:
The Gang War That Wasn’t: A Far Rockaway Murder Lit the Fuse of a Longstanding Conflict, but a Remarkable Peace Arrived Instead

June 5, 2013:
Ghost Stories: Scams Targeting S.F.’s Cantonese Community Reveal the Terrible Power of Belief

May 1 2013:
Assault on Devil’s Slide: A 150-Year Tale of Man Versus Mountain

March 20 2013:
Blind Spot: A Motorcycle Death Raises Unanswerable Questions

January 30, 2013:
The Amazing Kaepernick: Play-Faking the Culture

January 2 2013:
Public Influence: The Immortalization of an Anonymous Death

2012

November 21, 2012:
Barred from Freedom: How Pretrial Detention Ruins Lives

October 24, 2012:
Black Market Street: Inside a Thriving Open-Air Drug Business

September 26. 2012:
Hiding in Plain Sight: A Homicide Suspect Spent Four Years on the Lam

August 8, 2012:
Menace to Society: Why Many Young Black Men Are Accused of Being in Gangs

June 20, 2012:
Swoosh Dreams: How Nike Helped Turn the Oakland Soldiers into Pros

May 2 2012:
The Dispossessed: Bayview Homeowners Fight Foreclosures

April 26, 2012:
Rapper’s Sheet: Gang life inspired Yo Banga’s music. Now it threatens to derail his career.

February 23, 2012:
Familiar Ring: What must Devon Alexander “The Great” do to live up to his nickname?

January 19, 2012:
Harley Race’s Academy of Hard Knocks: Halfway Down the Road to Ruin, Ex-Pro Wrestler Turns his Life Around Through Teaching

2011

November 17, 2011:
Intentional Grounding: When the state stripped his Flyers of back-to-back conference titles last year, East St. Louis High football coach Darren Sunkett seemed done for. Not so fast.

September 15, 2011:
James Clark and Norm White want their Neighborhood Alliance to save St. Louis’ worst neighborhoods. Then they want it to save America.

August 18, 2011:
Let the Dems Keep Hating: Jamilah Nasheed Could Pull Off the Political Coup of the Century

June 14, 2011:
Joplin Tornado Three Weeks Later: Looters, Do-Gooders and One Giant Mess