How The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults Became a Legendary American Fiasco Looking back on Geraldo Rivera’s jaunt through an abandoned Chicago hotel.

On this the 40th anniversary of The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults, enjoy our deep dive on the One Year podcast into the amazing/bizarre story of what happened when Geraldo looked for buried treasure on live TV slate.com/podcasts/one...

In 1995, a Heinous Crime Led to Another Dark Episode in America. Everyone Has Forgotten What Happened. They Shouldn’t. The story of a man who didn’t do it.

31 years ago today on 4/19/1995 white supremacist terrorists bombed Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. In the days after the attack, a Muslim-American man named Ibrahim Ahmad was blamed for the attack. This is the story of the man who didn't bomb Oklahoma City slate.com/news-and-pol...

The Story Behind Jackie Robinson’s Damning Kiss-Off to a White Sports Writer That sports writer’s daughter, now 83, reads and responds to it for the first time.

In 1956, Jackie Robinson wrote to a white New Orleans sports writer: "I am happy for you, that you were born white. It would have been extremely difficult for you had it been otherwise.” There's an incredible backstory here, which I was able to dig up with the help of the sports writer's daughter.

This posthumous collection of my dad’s writing includes a previously unpublished piece on how Chicago was segregated. It extends the analysis from his seminal book Making the Second Ghetto. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

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as we were saying

Home | L.A. Material News for Los Angeles.

For about a year I've been working with some of the best reporters and editors in L.A. to build a brand new city news outlet. It launches tomorrow.

Is it possible to operate a sustainable local journalism business in 2026? Let me know! lamaterial.com

UT’s First (and Only) March Madness Title Didn’t Come Easily The Longhorn women are chasing a feat first accomplished forty years ago.

Good morning! I have a new piece about the 1986 Texas women’s basketball team, which 40 years ago became the first women’s bball team to go undefeated and win the championship. How hard it was to do and how great this team was that did it. www.texasmonthly.com/arts-enterta...

The U.S. Had a Crazy Strategy to Beat Canada for Men’s Hockey Gold. I Can’t Believe It Worked. Canada had the U.S. outgunned, so the Americans went to Milan with a bunch of machetes.

Bill Guerin is a complete caveman and this was a reckless, good ol' boys roster-building strategy and also he was right and those of us who doubted him are unfortunately losers slate.com/culture/2026...

Hey @rodger.bsky.social make sure the world knows that this dude is NOT in fact the tallest skier in the history of the world

Why a Floppy-Haired 27-Year-Old Olympic Skier Is Making Conservatives So Very, Very Angry “It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now, I think,” he said, fatefully.

Scott Hanson just said on Gold Zone that Hunter Hess (the free skier Trump called a loser) is 6-foot-9, "one of the tallest Olympians." U.S. Ski & Snowboard told me+@mollyolmstead.bsky.social that Hess is actually 6-foot flat. 6-foot-9 is a typo in his Team USA bio!!! slate.com/culture/2026...

As Rodger notes in his great newsletter, Shiffrin won the slalom by 0.53 seconds in 2014. Her two wins by a combined 2.03 seconds are bigger than the combined margins of the women's slalom winners in 2022, 2018, 2010, 2006, 2002, 1998, 1994, and 1992

sports.beehiiv.com/p/olympics-d...

Jesse Jackson Knew Better Than to Forget The civil rights icon always held America to account—and never stopped fighting to preserve what he knew could be taken away

Jesse Jackson died Tuesday at the age of 84. The civil rights icon always held America to account—and never stopped fighting to preserve what he knew could be taken away. I wrote about how he saw our future so well.

Friday Night With Steve Edwards: Jesse Jackson and David Duke - Media Burn Archive Friday Night with Steve Edwards TV show. Features a debate between civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and head of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke.

You can watch the whole debate here: mediaburn.org/videos/ku-kl...

And we got into how Jackson and Duke came to interact in episode 2 of Slow Burn season 4: slate.com/podcasts/slo...

RIP to Jesse Jackson, who in this debate w/David Duke in 1977 delivered (until the host cut him off) a message of unity and against "national isolationism" that's important to hear today. He also ended the show w/one of the sickest burns ever directed at Duke: "You're not even a legitimate Klansman"

It’s 10pm. Do you know where Brian Ferentz is coaching now?

The Olympic Hockey Tournament Is About to Get Very Trumpy In the 1980 Olympics, it was the U.S. vs. the USSR. Now, it’s the U.S. vs. Canada.

They're calling it the Reverse Miracle on Ice, where the American Olympic hockey team become ambassadors for a politics that the country isn't even a little bit interested in slate.com/culture/2026...

an image of Vigo the Carpathian, the villain from Ghostbusters 2

a photo of figure skater Ilia Malinin in his costume for the Olympics short program

I am loving Ilia Malinin's tribute to Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters 2

"On the day the WaPo sports section died—was killed, in fact—we ought to resist nostalgia ... First, nostalgia does little to polish the circulating résumés of the Post sportswriters who lost their jobs. Second, nostalgia is liable to make you wistful. What happened today should make you angry."

Our Kickstarter is live‼️

A new season of Burn It All Down is coming and we need your help to make it happen. Your support keeps independent, feminist sports media alive!

Learn more and support the campaign here:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/bur...

It's been really lovely reading all the tributes to Dan. Many people have asked if they can contribute to support his wife and son. You can do so here: everloved.com/life-of/dan-...

If I'm running an NFL team, my first question during the interview process is whether this was AI generated. If you're not writing your own LinkedIn Taco Bell sponcon, then can we really trust you with the keys?

@redargyle.bsky.social hey Anthony, can you email me at josh.levin@slate.com? have a question for you about curling. thanks!

Dan McQuade, 1983–2026 | Defector Dan McQuade, our friend and colleague, died this week at the age of 43. He is survived by his wife and young son. At the end of 2024, Dan was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer. The news of his diag...

I think the key that unlocks Dan was his desire to share the things he loved with other people. Wouldn’t be the worst way to honor him if we make the effort to do that for the things we love, too. defector.com/dan-mcquade-...

Going with the __e spelling

for our latest HIMMW interview: @joshuablevin.bsky.social left a 20-year "forever job" at Slate to go independent. We break down the finances of the jump:

🎙️ The cost of self-funding narrative podcasts
📖 Negotiating unpaid sabbaticals to write books
💸 Adjusting to a "TBD" income

Don't Lose Sight Of The 'Unprecedented' Reason Trump Is Coming For Minnesota Outrage over welfare cheats used to prompt calls for reform, not paramilitary operations.

I talked to @joshuablevin.bsky.social about the evolution of "welfare queen" politics during Trump 2.

www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-...

5 History Podcasts That'll Blow Your Mind About the Past 🕰️ 5 cultural history podcasts that unravel hidden narratives, challenging preconceived notions and revealing surprising insights about the past through expert storytelling and deep investigative journal...

For @earbudspodcol.bsky.social, I collected my fave podcast cultural history/mysteries, including work by @99pi.org's Christopher Johnson, @leonneyfakh.bsky.social, @geedee215.bsky.social + @willa.bsky.social (& the pilot episode of Replay Booth naturally) newsletter.earbuds.audio/p/cultural-h...

How Somalis Became the New ‘Welfare Queens’ Trump has reinvented Reagan’s old attack, with one key twist.

You can get carried away with these historical analogies and I tried hard not to do that here

Reagan, obviously, was not Trump

But some similarities hard to miss — and they can help us understand what’s happening www.thebulwark.com/p/how-somali...

Been kind of a rough game for Chris Fowler but all is redeemed if he says "this is for all the VRBOs"