Tag Archives: culture-features

This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. Cannabis is a pretty eco-friendly plant, all things considered: It’s versatile, it’s one of the fastest-growing commercial crops, and it may even help clean up soil …

Multi-level marketing schemes (MLMs) are having something of a moment as of late — and not in a good way. From the podcast The Dreamto the public disintegration of the women’s apparel company LulaRoe, MLMs are being exposed for their deceptive and manipulative marketing tactics, as well as the very …

For Eric Holler, it started 25 years ago with a letter to Richard Ramirez — a serial killer and rapist known as the “Night Stalker,” who was active from 1984 to 1985. He was fascinated by Ramirez’s case and decided to introduce himself in a letter. A few weeks later …

The Capitol Hill Club sits kiddy-corner from Cannon House Office building in downtown Washington, D.C. White table cloths and carved wooden elephants define the decor of this Hill hangout, which caters to mostly Republican lobbyists, staffers, and the occasional politician. But on a stifling day in June, a Democrat lobbyist …

Rating: Four out of fFve stars Libby Epstein, the narrator of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s enthralling debut novel, Fleishman Is In Trouble, is a magazine writer turned suburban mom obsessed with the work of Archer Sylvan, a legendary Tom Wolfe-esque journalist who picked one side of a story and argued passionately for …

Novelist Don Winslow has spent the last 20 years of his life absorbing more news about Mexico’s narco wars than most of us could stomach. This month he delivers the Border, the fiery conclusion of his sweeping drug-war trilogy. Clocking in at over 700 pages, it is his most overtly …

Earlier this month, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam granted clemency to Cyntoia Brown, who was serving a 51-year sentence for felony murder. Fourteen years ago, a teenaged Brown was prosecuted in Tennessee for shooting and killing a 43-year-old man who had solicited the 16-year-old Brown for sex in 2004. She said …

When Michelle Kramer moved to Country Club Hills, Illinois, she didn’t know much about R. Kelly — but soon, her youngdaughter, Dominique Gardner, became a superfan. In 2010, shortly after she graduated from high school, Gardner met the singer, who lived in the nearby Chicago suburb of Olympia Fields, through …