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Beto + Sasha (Sasha Watson for the Washington Post)
It was a revelation to me that we could stand on the edge of this great big country and look down at Mexico and Texas stretched alongside one another. This was the West, this was Beto, and there was so much here that was new to me. For one thing, in New York he’d gone by Robert; that was what I’d called him. Now I found that his family, his oldest friends, his bandmates all called him something else. And, as Beto, he was different. He wasn’t some quiet guy; he was the eldest son, the big brother, the leader of his small gang of artists and musicians.
Going Under at the Playboy Club (Josephine Livingstone for The New Republic)
My dress was long-sleeved and navy blue, an anxious Uniqlo purchase never previously worn. I had not thought to buy a handbag, so I hastily decanted the contents of my backpack into a free publisher’s tote that was, at least, new. I took a taxi from The New Republic’s office in Union Square to the Club, which meant that I had a total of about one minute’s practice in moving through the world in my disguise, and a long car ride to wonder what on earth I was actually doing, what kind of article I was beginning. Getting in the taxi at all was a challenge.
How Rwanda Could Be The First Country To Wipe Out Cervical Cancer (Sophie Cousins for Digg)
The news that there was a new vaccine which could drastically reduce the number of women getting cervical cancer went around the world. But with the excitement about the new vaccine came the realization that not all girls would have the same opportunity to receive it. It was likely that at least a decade would pass between its introduction in high-income countries and in low-income countries.
It Took A Village (Wendy Gillis for the Toronto Star)
A dedicated task force of officers would later recognize that note for what it was: a critical breakthrough in what would become the largest forensic investigation in Toronto police history, a probe that would reach back through eight years of pain and fear in the city’s Gay Village. Over the next few months, the note would set off a chain of discoveries, each building off the last, exposing a tragedy of unthinkable scale that raised urgent questions about how a killer went undetected for so long.
The Birth Tissue Profiteers (Caroline Chen for the New Yorker)
Because amniotic-stem-cell treatments don’t undergo the clinical trials required for F.D.A. approval, there’s little data or research on them. Their efficacy is highly questionable and, in one case where bacteria contaminated the supply, the lack of accountability in the industry has led to serious infections for a dozen patients.
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