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What Happened When I Bought a House With Solar Panels (Esmé E. Deprez for Bloomberg)
By mid-February, we’d reached a standstill. We wouldn’t complete the deal if it meant taking on the obligation to Sunrun. The trust managing Jug’s assets for his heirs was refusing to buy out the system. Sunrun was blocking the sale via a document called a UCC filing, which showed the company had a financial claim on the property. (Sunrun disputes how consumer advocates characterize UCC filings: “effective liens.”) Our lender was refusing to fund our loan without a resolution.
If You’re Drugged And Raped, The Police May Never Know. Here’s Why. (Rosalind Adams for Buzzfeed)
“It’s never a surprise to me when a result is negative. The tests just can’t be as conclusive as we want them to be,” said Catherine Garcia, who investigated over 1,000 sexual assault cases at the San Diego district attorney’s office and recalled only a handful of positive results.
‘This Land Is Meant Only for Saffron. Without It, It Means Nothing.’ (Sharanya Deepak for Eater)
According to Feroz Ahmad, a Waza Kashmiri chef based in Srinagar, saffron’s presence dates back to Kashmir in as early as the fifth century. Kashmiris infuse milk with saffron to break fast during Ramadan; use it in modur pulao, a sweet rice dish made with dry fruits in times of celebration; and sprinkle it on top of yogurt. The spice is used as novelty, never in excess or in everyday cooking. Its high value lends it exclusivity even in the region where it is grown.
The dodgy, vulnerable fame of YouTube’s child ASMR stars (Amelia Tait for Wired UK)
Global megabrands such as IKEA, Sony, McDonald’s and Toyota have now all created ASMR-inspired adverts, and in October 2018, platinum rapper Cardi B made an ASMR video that went on to be viewed nearly 10,000,000 times. It’s no longer surprising that 75 per cent of children want to be YouTubers, but these kids don’t want to be the next beauty-blogging Zoella or game-streaming PewDiePie. They want to be the next brain-tingling ASMR Darling.
The Priest of Abu Ghraib (Jennifer Percy for Smithsonian)
His mother, Kristi Casteel, could never picture her son as an interrogator. “He just wasn’t cruel to anyone,” she told me. She worried the job would change him. Casteel tried to rationalize. “Better that they have someone like me in the interrogation room,” he told her, “than someone who doesn’t care about the Geneva Conventions, or just wants to drop bombs.”
Photo: dmitry.kaglik