Inside the Thrilling, Slightly Terrifying World of Austrian Hut-to-Hut Hiking

Up, up, and away!

The Real Book - 99% Invisible

Since the mid-1970s, almost every jazz musician has owned a copy of the same book. It has a peach-colored cover, a chunky, 1970s-style logo, and a black plastic binding. It’s delightfully homemade-looking—like it was printed by a bunch of teenagers at a Kinkos. And inside is the…

Why Animals Don’t Get Lost

Birds do it. Bees do it. Learning about the astounding navigational feats of wild creatures can teach us a lot about where we’re going.

Death of a (Really Good) Salesman

He was a powerful executive at some of the best-known companies in the world. Then he started robbing banks. The meteoric rise and…

The Amazing Aviatrix of Wartime Casablanca

A daring teenage girl defies authority to become Morocco’s first female pilot and the hero of a young nation—then the victim of an assassination still shrouded in mystery.

One-Horse Town

What’s a year of social distancing when you’re a one-human town?

Lawsuits, secret taping and the unraveling of a powerhouse high school football program

Valdosta might be a 24-time state football champ, but lately its program has been rocked by a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by a former coach, the hiring of controversial coach Rush Propst and a secret recording that alleged cheating by SEC powers.

Inside America’s Most Interesting Magazine, and Media’s Oddest Workplace

The publication of the “Harper’s letter” attracted huge attention. Most people had stopped reading the magazine, which is stranger and better than you might expect.

Harriet Cole’s Mysterious Identity Still Stumps Historians

Whose body was harvested to create a spectacular anatomical specimen, and did that person know they would be on display more than a century later?

Conscripted Into The Emperor’s Private Orchestra

What does a crew of talented musicians do when forced to serve at the pleasure of a notoriously cruel dictator? They play like their lives depend on it.

Did the Black Death Rampage Across the World a Century Earlier Than Previously Thought?

Scholar Monica Green combined the science of genetics with the study of old texts to reach a new hypothesis about the plague

Meeting the Darkhad, the soul guards of Genghis Khan - SupChina

What It’s Really Like When a Prison ‘Lifer’ Gets a New Shot at Life

Ricardo Sapienza served 25 years for a crime he swears he didn’t commit. But his hardest challenge began the day the parole board finally said “yes.”

The Spy of Night and Fog (2020)

Noor Khan, a pacifist descendant of Indian Royalty became a famed World War II spy for Britain’s Special Operations Executive.

The Lost Prince of Yacht Rock

In 1978 he was music’s next big thing. Then his album bombed, he began a long slide into obscurity, and a bizarre fraud sent him to prison. Will Dane Donohue finally get his encore?

Spilling Secrets

A bartender opens up about what it’s really like to spend your nights as a therapist/wingman/entertainer/best friend for an entire roomful of inebriated New Yorkers.

Why Extraterrestrial Life May Not Seem Entirely Alien

The zoologist Arik Kershenbaum argues that because some evolutionary challenges are truly universal, life throughout the cosmos may share certain features.

Mark Carney: ‘I didn’t want the Bank of England job. But I was asked to fix something’

He earned a fortune at Goldman Sachs, but now the banker wants the financial sector to reassess its values and tackle the climate emergency

The fabric no one knows how to make

Nearly 200 years ago, Dhaka muslin was the most valuable fabric on the planet. Then it was lost altogether. How did this happen? And can we bring it back?

The Wolf That Discovered California

Nearly a century after the last wolf was eradicated in the state, a lone female arrived and established a pack. Not everyone is cheering

How Freddie Gibbs Beat the Odds to Reach the Mountaintop

After a turbulent decade, the Gary, Indiana, native has cemented himself as one of the greatest rappers of his—or any—generation. And on Sunday, he’s up for a Grammy award.

The art dealer, the £10m Benin Bronze and the Holocaust

Western museums are under pressure to return looted treasure, but what of those in private collections?

Brackets, Buzzer Beaters and Burning Jockstraps: For Indiana, Hosting March Madness Renews an Epic Tradition of Hoosier Hysteria

Indiana is set to host a Big Dance unlike any other, evoking the madness—from buzzer beaters to bourbon-soaked basketball—of the state's fabled high school tournament.

What I Learned from Doing 100 Wheelies a Day

In her quest to master a quintessential cool-kid trick, Outside contributor Kim Cross found the sweet spot at the crossroads of work and play

Tuna’s Last Stand | Hakai Magazine

Skipjack are the world’s most abundant tuna. They’re resilient, but can they outswim our demand for this pantry staple?

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2021-2-march-april/feature/demise-and-potential-revival-american-chestnut

How Hank the Cowdog Made John R. Erickson the King of the Canine Canon

He wanted to become a serious literary novelist, like Faulkner or Hemingway. Fortunately for millions of Hank the Cowdog fans, he failed.

The Audacious Tabloid Couple Who Scammed Their Way Into New York’s High Soc

The vaudeville dancer and his beguiling Parisian wife arrived in Manhattan in 1911 with secret identities in tow. They enjoyed wealth and notoriety for years—until it all came crashing down.

The story of the worst baseball team ever

The Official Site of Major League Baseball

The Row’s Beige Ambition

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen grew up to make New York’s most desirable clothes. But can even perfection survive the pandemic?

How to Build an Artificial Heart

Millions of hearts fail each year. Why can’t we replace them?

The 25 Greatest Art Heists of All Time

What are the greatest art heists of all time? See a list of the 25 most memorable thefts from museums.

The Once-Classified Tale of Juanita Moody: The Woman Who Helped Avert a Nuclear War

America’s bold response to the Soviet Union depended on an unknown spy agency operative whose story can at last be told

50 Great Classic Novels Under 200 Pages

We are now past the mid-way point in February, which is technically the shortest month, but is also the one that—for me, anyway—feels the longest. Especially this year, for all of the reasons that …

Sitting Atop the World, Sketching the Faces of the Dead

The author, a former soldier, reflects on his experiences helping build the top secret Karakoram Highway between China and Pakistan in the late 1970s.

Huntsville station

‘It’s a trip just being out’: at the local Greyhound bus station with newly released men from the Texas State Penitentiary

The Extraordinary Trial of the Child Soldier Who Became a Brutal Rebel Comm

Kidnapped at 9 by Joseph Kony’s notorious guerilla army, Dominic Ongwen was groomed to kill. Is he a lost soul deserving of mercy, or a cold-blooded war criminal who must face justice?

On Hustles - The Paris Review

For all of its other moving parts, ‘White Men Can’t Jump’ relies on teasing out the part of a hustle that I am most fascinated by in real life.

All Personal Feeds

Iga Swiatek of Poland came out of nowhere to win the French Open in October. A sports psychologist was with her all the way.

The Original Karen

After Kenya declared independence from British rule in 1963, there came a flood of renamings. Schools, suburbs, and roads were rechristened in ways that spoke to a new idea of what it meant to be…

Hawkeye Elegy: A collision of pandemic, disaster, and polarization in the heartland

Last summer a monster storm tore across Iowa, leaving billions of dollars damage in its wake. It was a brutal blow to an economy already reeling from a deadly pandemic and a state divided by politics like never before.

The Accident on the Pacific Crest Trail

The Pacific Crest Trail is as dangerous as it is beautiful. This is the story of one young hiker who never made it home.

There Is No Chinese ‘Debt Trap’

The narrative wrongfully portrays both Beijing and the developing countries it deals with.

Reading

These are the things that have inspired me the most or changed the way I live. You can find what I'm reading now on Goodreads [https://goodreads.com/austenallred]. Memos/Articles/Blogs * Amazon Shareholder Letters…

Two Elderly Sisters in Lifelong Isolation in India

The photographer Debsuddha documents the indignities suffered by his albino aunts in Kolkata, and how their world became even smaller in coronavirus lockdown.

The Century-Old Neon Sign Tearing Up LA Conservationists

After hiding just out of frame for decades, an exceptionally rare and remarkable Depression-era neon sign was discovered outside of Los Angeles. Then the past came rushing back.

List of Logical Fallacies with Examples

A comprehensive list of logical fallacies, with definitions, explanations, and examples that are easy-to-understand.

The mind-blowing secret of the Armenian alphabet - PeopleOfAr

The Armenian alphabet is a true masterpiece of its era and knows many secrets. However, there is one in particular that still blows my mind. As some people know the Armenian alphabet was (re)invented in 405 AD by the Armenian linguist and theologian Mesrop Mashtots with the help…

The Long History of Japan’s Tidying Up

Marie Kondo is just the current manifestation of a tradition of cleaning.

Lunik: Inside the CIA’s audacious plot to steal a Soviet satellite

How a team of spies in Mexico got their hands on Russia's space secrets—and tried to change the course of the Cold War.