Inside one Southern university, Christian missionaries are being trained to go undercover in the Muslim world and win converts for Jesus. Originally published in Mother Jones. AT 8 O’CLOCK ON A WARM MONDAY MORNING IN JANUARY, 20 students file into Rick Love’s classroom at Columbia International University in South Carolina. Eyes glassy from writing papers all weekend, they […]
A Mother Finds Her Voice
Judy Shepard, whose son Matthew was murdered because he was gay, has summoned the courage to share her story. Originally published in Us Weekly. ONE DAY LAST MAY, while she was in Toronto, Judy Shepard looked up and caught a glimpse of her older son crossing the street. Wearing khakis and a blue-checked shirt that hung loosely […]
Airline Insecurity
Federal regulators have known for years that the nation’s system of airport security was “seriously flawed.” But the FAA repeatedly placed politics and profits above the public’s safety. Originally published in Mother Jones. THE BUZZER SOUNDED AT AN AWKWARD MOMENT for Rep. Don Young. The Alaska Republican was halfway through a press conference on October 17, explaining […]
Journalist, Interrupted
Why my stutter makes me a better reporter Originally published in the Journal of Michigan Fellows. Note: This column has been revised slightly to reflect the current state of the science and the language. It is also a snapshot in time. For a 2019 update on how I currently viewed stuttering, see my essay Stammer Time […]
Surgical Strike
Originally published in Mother Jones. BARBARA HARRIS WAS EAGER TO BECOME a foster mother when she received a call from a social worker in 1990, asking her to take in an eight-month-old girl born to a woman addicted to crack cocaine. Harris, a waitress at a pancake house, agreed. Over the next two years, she […]
‘I Had An Abortion When I Was Six Months Pregnant’
Confronted with desperately ill unborn twins and great risks to her own health, a young woman steps into a political minefield. By Gina Gonzales as told to Barry Yeoman. Originally published in Glamour. I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD CARE PASSIONATELY about the abortion issue or that I would find myself defending one of the most controversial medical procedures […]
The Quiet War on Abortion
After decades of noisy protests and violence, anti-abortion activists are relying on a new ‘stealth strategy’ to shut down clinics. Originally published in Mother Jones. IT WAS COUNSELING DAY LAST SPRING at the Hope Medical Group for Women, a small brick abortion clinic tucked discreetly along a street of upscale shops in Shreveport, Louisiana. In the waiting […]
Subsidies at Sea
A private shipbuilder received millions in ‘location incentives’ to save an abandoned naval yard in South Philadelphia. What did the city get in return? Originally published in Mother Jones. PHIL ROWAN WAS CALLED OFF his construction site one crisp October afternoon and told to get himself down to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. It was an invitation to […]
Drugs Online
Viagra, Prozac, diet pills, even party drugs—all can be had with just a click of your computer mouse. And there’s little anyone can do to stop the growing Internet drug trade. Originally published in Ladies’ Home Journal. THREE YEARS AGO, MARY ELLEN MELLOR received a phone call from her husband, who was at a hospital. “I’m in […]
Wild Cats in Carolina
Is the Carnivore Preservation Trust creating a genetic future for threatened species—or genetic junk? Originally published in Discover. LORI WIDENER OPENS THE GATE of the 12-foot-high fence that surrounds the Carnivore Preservation Trust outside Pittsboro, North Carolina, and walks toward the home of her favorite resident, Scooter. “Where’s my boy?” she coos, peering into an enormous walk-in […]
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