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The Scientist Who Explored the Skies
MT. PALOMAR – Visiting the Palomar observatory in the forested mountains northeast of San Diego is a bit like finding oneself at the foot of one of the great pyramids of Egypt. The scale is so intimidating, so outsized compared to its surroundings,

Saving the American Buffalo by Killing It
Jerry Blanks took careful aim through the powerful scope on his black hunting rifle as the buffalo surrounding the pick-up truck watched him quizzically. His eye was focused on the dark fur just behind the ear of a young bull that stood just slightly apart from the group.

The Death of a Black Nursing Home
PITTSBURGH, Penn.–Elaine Carrington moved into the Lemington Home for the Aged in Pittsburgh in November 2004. She died three weeks later of a blood clot in her lungs. An investigation by the state found that the staff had failed to give Carrington any

Why Medicaid’s Racism Drove Historically-Black Nursing Home Bankrupt
PITTSBURGH, Penn.–On July 4, 1883, the Lemington Home for the Aged opened as a charity to house “aged and infirm colored women.” The first four residents included a former slave named Aunt Peggy. That began a 122 history of service that would end

Reproductive Rights and the Criminal Justice System
This Mom Checked Her Newborn Out of the Hospital Early. The Next Day Her Baby Was Taken Away.
Tiffany Langwell was thrilled to find out she was pregnant again at the age of 38. She had two children from her first marriage —

The Hare’s Race: Can evolution save species from climate change?
Behind the wheel of his boxy red Ford F-250 truck, L. Scott Mills sipped his watery coffee and headed east. It was 18 degrees out on a dim and wintry Missoula morning. As the sun rose and the sky turned white, Mills followed Montana Route 200 along the lazy Blackfoot River, northeast toward the town of Seeley Lake.

An Epic Experiment: Can America’s Great Plains Bison Recover?
The battered white pickup truck is bouncing across a pasture of sagebrush and alfalfa when Bronc Speak Thunder turns the steering wheel east and points to the far side of a creek bed. Scattered across a grassy slope are what appear to be a field of brown boulders —

Americans Are Working So Hard, It’s Actually Killing People
Jessica Wheeler works the night shift as an oncology nurse at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital in northeastern Pennsylvania—but her patients are usually wide awake. “When they have a new cancer diagnosis or they’re going to have a biopsy in the morning, they don’t sleep,”

Corporate Fishing
What’s it take to buy a share of the ocean in America? For Lion Capital, the British private equity firm, the price is somewhere south of $980 million. That’s the sum the London-based firm paid three years ago when it bought Bumble Bee

Treating Humans Inhumanely in America’s Justice System
“While waiting for an officer to handcuff and escort me back to the cell that awaited me after showering, I sat on the floor holding a razor used for shaving,” W writes to me. “Today was the day I decided to end my

The Hidden History of Same-Sex Marriage in Asia
October, 2013 Muern Sarun’s parents had turned down several offers of marriage when they asked a motorbike mechanic named Rous Savy to take their daughter’s hand. Rous had taken a liking to Muern after she parked in front of his house in

Which Species Will Live?
The ashy storm-petrel, a tiny, dark-gray seabird, nests on 11 rocky, isolated islands in the Pacific Ocean off the coasts of California and Mexico. Weighing little more than a hefty greeting card and forced to contend with invasive rats, mice and cats, aggressive seagulls, oil spills and sea-level rise, it faces an outsize fight for survival.

South Africa’s Same-Sex Marriages Don’t Always Have A Happy Ending
When the reigning Mr. Gay Namibia married his Botswanan partner in South Africa in April 2013, Zimbabwe’s ZimEye.org declared, “History [made] as Africa witnesses second gay wedding.” The first, said the website, happened a week earlier when two men married in a Zulu

South Africa’s Gay Imam and His Disciples
On a rainy afternoon not long ago, South Africa’s only openly gay imam was wrapping up a sermon in a candlelit room in Cape Town. A devoted congregation of a nearly a dozen lesbian, gay, and transgendered Muslims, adorned in hijabs, embroidered fezzes,

Shoving the Poor Through the Courthouse: How the Legal Sausage is Stuffed
Fifty years ago, an eloquent drifter from Florida changed the American justice system. Clarence Earl Gideon, accused of breaking into a pool hall, was tried without a lawyer in Bay County, Florida, in 1961. Convicted after representing himself, he petitioned the Supreme Court

Centuries after the Black Death, Plague Still Kills
ARUA, Uganda — Isaac Baniyo stumbled through his final exam in English last November as a pounding headache and chest pain made it difficult to focus. The teenager’s parents sent him on foot to a drug shop not far from their grass-roofed hut

The WHO vs. the Tea Doctor
ENTEBBE, Uganda—It’s a little after 9 a.m. on the Wagagai Flower Farm, and Robert Watsusi pedals a bicycle laden with two 3-gallon jugs of a hot, bitter black tea. As he rounds a corner, workers emerge from football field–size growing houses to imbibe their weekly dose of the elixir they say keeps them free from malaria.

Latin America’s Gay Marriage Revolution
In his second inaugural address, U.S. President Barack Obama pledged to make the United States a beacon for the world by recommitting the country to its ideals of equality. He also made history by saying those ideals demand marriage rights for same-sex couples

Climate adaptation: Survival of the flexible
Up in the foothills of the Rockies last summer, researchers from Colorado State University in Fort Collins fanned out along the banks of a stream. Some took the water’s temperature and measured its speed and chemistry. Others waded in to catch insects using flat-bottomed nets.

Should we Dilute Genes to Save a Species?
West of Pahrump, Nevada, in a corner of the Mojave Desert a couple thousand feet above Death Valley, a warm aquifer provides a home for one of the world’s rarest animals. It’s a tiny silvery-blue fish, smaller than your pinkie toe, and in the past 50 years it has survived real-estate speculators,


Polish Entrepreneurs after the 1989 Roundtable

U.S. Border Wars Show No Signs of Keeping Migrants Out

New Coal Isn’t Old Coal

The Jewish Museum in Berlin – “Not a Guilt Trip”

Hispanic Poultry Workers Live in New Southern Slums

Saving the Sage Grouse

Report From Siberia: Making A Living

Tumpa: A Sex Worker of Calcutta

Anatomy Of A Gay Murder

Education in Cuba

Convicting the Wrong Man: Part Two of Two

Milestones: A Road Map to the Indian Middle Clas

Cracking An Unsolved Rape Case Makes History

A Diary of Danger on the Seas

The Third Grade Answer

An Ant’s Life. Surprise: No One’s in Charge

Masking the Face of Battle


The ‘Special Period’ In Cuba

Homophobic Killings in Texas

Women Entrepreneurs in Poland



Report From Siberia: Life in a Khanty Reindeer Camp
![At the Haitian National Penitentiary, Touchè Caman does outreach for Chans Altenativ. looking for deportees among the inmates. “I never thought I’d be going back into a prison after the last time,” he tells me laughing. “It’s a lot different on the other side [of the bars]. “Maybe Chans Altenativ can help a few of them when they get out.”](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/DeCesare_Haiti01-300x204.jpg)
Haiti: Giving Hope a Second Chance


Continental Divide Trail

Oil Discovery Rocks the Caspian Sea

The Genius of One Caring Teacher

Good Times Fall On Hard Times In Mississippi

In the Name of the Father

Southern Schools Strain Under Immigrant Arrivals

Maquiladora Workers Get Homes of Their Own

Ida Tarbell: Learning to Dig

The HMOs That Make Money Off The Poor

Mentors Can Mean Magic

Bram Fischer’s Journey

Benazir and the Bomb

Real Nuns Don’t Wear Habits

Struggling to Change in Spite of the Odds

Letter from Baku, Azerbaijan

Nogales Plans to Rescue Children from Border Underworld


Selling Seniors on HMO’s

Doom Thy Neighbor: After Hiroshima and Nagasaki… Lahore and Bombay?

True Heroes

Maids

Messages from Underground

Ida Tarbell: A Reporter’s Life

Bridging Troubled Waters in Ambos Nogales

Benazir Bhutto: Comeback Kid?

Avenging Angels: Homegirl Survival Stories

Coca Fields: Better than Devastation?

Lynching in Huejutla

The Lessons of Ida Tarbell 2

Border Patrol Catches Flak at Arizona Checkpoint

Report from Abkhazia

