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There's a Big Downside to Demonizing Opioids
We May Have Gone Too Far
in Demonizing Opioids
longform
Jun 9, 2024 3:20 PM CDT

We May Have Gone Too Far in Demonizing Opioids

Too many people are dying painful deaths, writes Ann Neumann in the Baffler

(Newser) - The stigma in America against opioid use is an understandable one, writes Ann Neumann in the Baffler . After all, the devastating toll of addiction over the last two decades by drugs such as OxyContin has been well chronicled. Neumann covers that familiar territory in her piece, but in the context...

Disney's China Experiment Hasn't Gone as Expected
Disney's China Experiment
Hasn't Gone as Expected
longform
Jun 9, 2024 12:25 PM CDT

Disney's China Experiment Hasn't Gone as Expected

For one thing, the little-known LinaBell is the most popular character, as the Dial explains

(Newser) - When Disney opened Shangahi Disneyland in 2016, it had visions of becoming a cultural juggernaut in China on par with its success in the US. Things haven't gone exactly as planned. "Disneyland is popular in China, but not in the way that Disney intended," writes Lavender Au...

A Black Market Has Emerged for DIY Poop Transplants

Slate looks at the risky treatment under FDA scrutiny

(Newser) - Fecal microbiota transplants involve transferring healthy bacteria from a donor's gut microbiome to another person's colon—a poop transplant—and are as experimental as it gets. The FDA has greenlit just one type of FMT treatment in recent years, to treat a bacterial infection known as C. diff....

'Starbucks of Bowling' Upends Sport's Old-School Culture

The Lever takes an in-depth, and unflattering, look at the fast-growing Bowlero chain

(Newser) - The Lever estimates that 70 million Americans bowled at least once last year, making the humble pastime the largest participation sport in the nation. And it's a safe bet that many of those people did so in an alley owned by the fast-growing Bowlero chain. Though it sprang up...

WSJ Story About Biden 'Slipping' Is Hot Topic in DC

Newspaper offers critical assessment as Democrats complain about bias

(Newser) - One of the stories causing the biggest kerfuffle in DC this week is a 3,000-word piece in the Wall Street Journal whose headline provides the gist: "Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping." It's based on interviews with more than 45 people over a span...

Cheer Mom Accused of Deepfakes Tells Her Side
Cheer Mom in 'Deepfake'
Scandal Tells Her Side
longform
Jun 2, 2024 4:10 PM CDT

Cheer Mom in 'Deepfake' Scandal Tells Her Side

Raffaella Spone never actually faked anything, though that part of the story wasn't widely told

(Newser) - The story was so sensational, it inspired a Lifetime television movie called Deadly Cheer Mom—but what was the truth behind the sordid tabloid tales? Raffaella Spone has come forward for the first time to tell her side of the story to the Guardian , and she insists almost none of...

Big Dairy Is Thrilled With Your Butter Board
Big Dairy Is Thrilled
With Your Butter Board
longform
Jun 2, 2024 1:50 PM CDT

Big Dairy Is Thrilled With Your Butter Board

Grist looks at how the industry's PR machine is on a roll, displeasing some critics

(Newser) - Not too long ago, "butter board" recipes and how-tos were all the rage on social media. Not surprisingly, the dairy industry was pretty happy about this sudden love of butter. What may be a bit more surprising is that the industry itself played a big role in helping butter...

A Texas Dad Still Wants to Know: Who Killed His Boy?

Marshall Stewart has been searching for his son's killers since 1988

(Newser) - "For thirty-five f—ing years, my brain's been turning over all these questions," says Sean Stewart. Questions like why the bodies of his 16-year-old brother, Shane, and Sally McNelly, 18, were left in the brush along a rough dirt path leading to a reservoir outside San Angelo...

What the Mom of This Mass Shooter Can Teach Us
What the Mom of
This Mass Shooter
Can Teach Us
longform
Jun 1, 2024 5:45 PM CDT

What the Mom of This Mass Shooter Can Teach Us

There's a lot that threat assessment teams can learn from 2014 Isla Vista massacre

(Newser) - On May 23, 2014, Elliot Rodger fatally stabbed his two roommates and one of their friends in their Santa Barbara-area apartment, then went on a driving and shooting rampage through nearby Isla Vista, California, killing three more people and injuring 14 others before taking his own life. In the aftermath...

India Silences Its Critics— on US Soil
We May Be
Overlooking
a Dangerous
Slide in India
longform
May 26, 2024 12:43 PM CDT

We May Be Overlooking a Dangerous Slide in India

Vox reports on how government silences critics in America through intimidation

(Newser) - When reporter Zack Beauchamp was speaking to an expert on India who lived in the US, the person mentioned they were afraid of being too critical for fear the government would go after relatives back in India. It sounded like a tactic you might hear in regard to China or...

3M Scientist Regrets Role in Study of Forever Chemicals

ProPublica reports on the company's long-standing knowledge about dangers of PFOS

(Newser) - Back in the 1990s, a 3M chemist named Kris Hansen discovered a surprising and troubling thing: Toxic "forever chemicals" were showing up in every blood sample she tested—from ordinary people all over the country. As ProPublica reports, Hansen shared the findings with superiors, only to run into friction....

We Have Her to Thank, or Blame, for Calorie Counting

A profile of Lulu Hunt Peters

(Newser) - Someone had to invent the concept of counting calories as a way to lose weight, and that someone was Lulu Hunt Peters. As Michelle Stacey writes in a fascinating piece for Smithsonian , Peters had quite the science CV for a woman of her time. She graduated with an MD from...

It's a Head's Up to the Nation's Many Passive Investors

Harper's magazine takes a look at popular index funds, and hears from the doomsayers

(Newser) - Like a lot of Americans—an increasingly growing number, in fact—Andrew Lipstein is a passive investor. Broadly speaking, this kind of investing is "a buy-and-hold strategy using index (or similar) funds to match the overall performance of the market," writes Lipstein in the new cover story at...

Afghan General's Brutality May Have Backfired on US

'New York Times' reports on the legacy of Gen. Abdul Raziq

(Newser) - When the US was in Afghanistan, an Afghan general by the name of Abdul Raziq was seen as one of America's most valuable allies in the fight against the Taliban. On the upside, Raziq was young, brave, smart, and charismatic, and he kept order in crucial Kandahar, the New ...

Steamy Love Letters Found in Wall Take a Twisty Turn

'Baltimore Banner' helps fill in the cracks of tale told by century-old love letters

(Newser) - When Joanna Meade's contractor opened up the walls of her 1910 Baltimore home during a bathroom renovation, out came a tin box painted with golden stripes. Inside were 67 love letters postmarked between 1920 and 1921, the paper browned and delicate with age. As she began poring through them,...

Chess Can't Shake Its Dark Side as Popularity Rises

Business Insider piece says sexism, cheating, abuse remain factors

(Newser) - Chess has been exploding in popularity of late, and Rob Price takes a deep dive into the culture for Business Insider . What he paints is not a pretty picture. Chess "is uniquely positioned to act as an accelerant for the internet's worst impulses: sexism , abuse, cheating, elitism, and...

Critics See Danger in CO2 Pipelines: 'Zombie' Leaks

'The Lever' looks at safety concerns after two leaks led to scary symptoms for residents

(Newser) - Part of the White House plan to fight climate change involves the construction of carbon dioxide pipelines across the country—part of an experimental "carbon capture and storage" strategy. In short, the idea is "aimed at sequestering carbon emissions from power plants, sending it through pipelines, and injecting...

After Everest Was Conquered, He Ran 200 Miles to Tell the World

'Outside' shares the untold story of Ten Tsewang Sherpa

(Newser) - The legendary Greek messenger who ran from Marathon to Athens to share news of a Greek victory over the Persians has nothing on Ten Tsewang Sherpa. He's a man who had slipped into the shadows of history after delivering "perhaps the last piece of world news ever sent...

OnlyFans Has a 'Murky Yet Vital' Secret
OnlyFans Has a
'Murky Yet Vital' Secret
longform
May 19, 2024 8:33 AM CDT

OnlyFans Has a 'Murky Yet Vital' Secret

'Wired:' An army of low-paid professional chatters pose as the platform's performers

(Newser) - OnlyFans subscribers who cherish their one-on-one relationships with personalities on the site might want to consider the math problem involved here: The thriving platform has about 2 million creators and 190 million subscribers, writes Brendan I. Koerner at Wired . Meaning, "it's impossible for even a modestly popular creator...

Amanda Knox Turns on Killer She Thought Was Innocent

Her deep dive in the 'Atlantic' details how her belief in Jens Soering's innocence slowly crumbled

(Newser) - Jens Soering is a double murderer now out on parole, convicted in 1990 of killing the parents of his then-girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom, with Haysom's help. But during his more than three-decade stretch in prison before being released in 2019, the German national gained an infamous correspondent: Amanda Knox , who...

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