By Eric Schlosser

Twenty-five years after Fast Food Nation warned of corporate consolidation's dangers, the problem has metastasized: four companies now control 80% of beef, 75% of yogurt, 93% of soft drinks. Abbott's contaminated Michigan formula plant supplied one-fifth of America's infant formula. When Cronobacter infections killed babies and forced shutdowns, parents nationwide spent months hunting desperately for alternatives. Trump's Make America Healthy Again crusade polled at 96% approval while his administration simultaneously slashed CDC staffing by a quarter and terminated bird flu vaccine funding. True-cost accounting exposes the actual bill: $3.3 trillion annually once pollution and healthcare expenses surface from their hiding places in spreadsheet footnotes. Factory farms incubate novel pathogens while captured regulators stand aside, intervening only after bodies accumulate.

By Julie Gordon, Photography by Grant Harder

Julie Gordon discovered online psychic platforms in 2014 after romantic rejection sent her spiraling on Salt Spring Island. What began as occasional reassurance morphed into compulsive hourly binges, ten advisers consecutively at up to $10 per minute, sometimes burning through $1,000 in a single wine-soaked evening. Over eight years she hemorrhaged nearly half a million dollars including lost wages and penalty fees, eventually facing foreclosure on her Victoria home when property taxes went unpaid. The mechanics mirror gambling addiction: vulnerable users chase fantasy futures to avoid grief's unbearable stages, particularly after romantic loss. Online platforms exploit this ruthlessly with seamless auto-billing, daily horoscope teasers, and adviser DMs claiming "new information." One site permitted $100,000 monthly spending caps per user. Research confirms the pattern; a French psychologist studying a woman spending €200 per session found she met clinical criteria for addictive disorder. Gordon clawed back through university contract work and community reconnection in Victoria, though she maintains occasional contact with select advisers for guidance. Retirement vanished from her horizon at sixty, but she swims daily in a nearby inlet where water feels like silk, practicing what might constitute self-love.

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By Alexandra Marvar

Sheriff Lummie Jenkins ruled Wilcox County, Alabama for thirty-two years until 1971, cultivating mythology around himself as an unarmed lawman who summoned suspects through charisma alone. His granddaughter's 2008 hagiography celebrated this legend through testimonials from white family, journalists, and politicians. Black residents remember someone else entirely. In 1953, Jenkins beat Della McDuffie to death with a rubber hose inside her café. She was sixty-three, paralyzed, used a wheelchair. When ordered to stand, she couldn't. The sheriff's office listed cause of death as "preexisting blood condition." Thurgood Marshall pressed for federal investigation; witnesses refused testimony after threats, and the case dissolved. Jenkins closed the Gee's Bend ferry in 1962 as voting registration efforts intensified, transforming a fifteen-minute passage into an hour-plus ordeal requiring cars and gas money most residents lacked. His reported comment: "We didn't close the ferry because they were Black. We closed it because they forgot they were Black." When David Colston was shot in 1966 by a white farmer after a traffic incident, the killer walked free within hours. Black voters finally ousted Jenkins in 1970. One month after the county's first Black sheriff won election in 1978, Jenkins died of a heart attack. A white coworker told civil rights veteran Sheryl Threadgill Matthews that Jenkins had vowed he'd "die and go to hell before he see a Black man become sheriff." Today Wilcox County remains profoundly segregated while voter ID requirements echo old suppression tactics.

By Umberto Gonzalez

Hassan Youssef built Valnet's digital empire on expertise acquired through online porn, specifically mastering SEO algorithms that propelled sites like Pornhub and Brazzers to search dominance. Federal investigators seized $6.4 million in 2009 for suspected money laundering; the founders paid a $2.2 million fine and sold their adult entertainment holdings for $140 million the following year. Youssef pivoted to entertainment journalism in 2012, acquiring fan sites Screen Rant, Collider, MovieWeb and CBR, then gutting compensation structures. Freelance rates plummeted from $250 per article to $40, now $30 for reviews, with some writers receiving just $15. A leaked spreadsheet documents over 400 blacklisted freelancers banned for infractions like requesting rate transparency or calling compensation "abysmal." Former contributors describe "sweatshop-level" content mills prioritizing SEO clickbait volume over journalism quality, with editors facing impossible quotas while understaffed.

Really hope you enjoyed the selection of stories today. I am always interested in hearing from you. If you have thoughts on how I can make this email even better, do not hesitate to reach out.

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