Hypocrisy, greed, deception, and exploitation of labor have a way of catching up with an organization, as I learned while reporting my new book, Hot Dog Money: Inside the Biggest Scandal in the History of College Sports. The NCAA is no exception to these truisms, despite more than a century …
Read More »Some Police Units Are Murdering and Torturing Civilians. We Need a National Investigation
On the night of January 24, 2023, in Mississippi, six members of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office kicked in the front door of a house without a warrant. For an hour and a half, these Mississippi officers — members of the self-named Goon Squad —tortured two Black men, Eddie Parker …
Read More »He Helped Create Silk Road — But Ross Ulbricht Should Be Freed
On March 27, 2024, Ross Ulbricht expressed a birthday wish from prison. “Today, I turn 40,” Ulbricht had his family post on the Twitter account he uses to communicate with the outside world.“I pray I’ll get a second chance at freedom before this next decade ends.” He followed that up …
Read More »How the O.J. Simpson Car Chase and Trial Changed Media Forever
The slow-speed car chase never really ended. It began on June 17, 1994, and it happened, appropriately, in prime time for many viewers. A warrant was out for O.J. Simpson‘s arrest for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. And when police caught up …
Read More »'Shrek' Ruined Kids' Movies — But That's OK
A few months ago, I was scrolling through TikTok when I saw a video of Shrek on a giant screen at a rave, happily gamboling through his swamp to a remixed version of “Boom Boom Boom Boom.” Then the beat drops, and he starts stomping and projectile vomiting all over …
Read More »'The Death of College Sports Will Be Fast and Furious:' The Scandal That Could Kill the NCAA
Despite the hype of March Madness, the NCAA as we know it is doomed. Every week there is another story about a lawsuit threatening the NCAA: student-athletes at Dartmouth voting to unionize, kids in California claiming to be college employees, or a tennis player suing for prize money she won …
Read More »The Royals Have Totally Lost Control of the Narrative
It is a controversy more befitting of a Real Housewife than a royal princess. On Monday, Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, posted a personal message — via the Kensington Royal social pages — to apologize for any “confusion” caused by a Mother’s Day photograph. (In the U.K., Mother’s Day …
Read More »Aaron Bushnell's Self-Immolation Protest Needed to Be Seen. But That Didn't Make It Easy to Report
Sunday afternoon, I opened Twitter to see a report circulating that “someone attempted to set themselves on fire” outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. I reposted that report and noted that this is second such incident to occur (information about the first, in Atlanta in December 2023 remains largely …
Read More »Trans Hate Is Big Business. Kids Like Nex Benedict Are Dying as a Result
I have been thinking a lot about Nex Benedict, the 16-year-old transgender student who died on Feb. 8, a day after allegedly being assaulted in the restroom at Owasso High School in Oklahoma. Although Nex’s death is still being investigated, his grandmother has said he had been bullied in the …
Read More »Deeper Underground: 2024 Is the Year of the Tunnel
Suddenly, the ground beneath our feet doesn’t feel so solid. That’s because as 2024 kicked off, the topic of tunnels began to come up again and again. They can be dangerous or just baffling, their scale often impressive (and sometimes disputed). A few remain works in progress: TikToker @engineer.everything, nicknamed …
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