Ethan Chiel

A deeply upsetting object lesson in how the arcane details of inheritance and property law are used to strip black Americans of their land.

In Fairfield County, Connecticut wealth disparity is higher than anywhere else in the United States. Jacqueline Rabe Thomas shows how the local governments and populations of the county’s wealthy towns use zoning rules to thwart the building of affordable housing.

Jesse Barron goes to Huntsville, Alabama to tell a story of private equity, manufacturing, debt, and who ends up holding the bag.

“[A]t school, she pretended that she was a horse. This did not help integrate her into the mainstream of child society, but privately she expressed confidence in her choice.”

In 2009 the IRS created a special team to investigate when and how the extremely wealthy were avoiding taxes. Reporters Jesse Eisenger and Paul Kiel illustrate how that team was stymied using the case of the heir to a German automative parts fortune.

Why confront rot when you can monetize the rot instead?

“It’s a positive sign that our enemies are scared…Unfortunately, however, we are not dealing here with the return of socialism.”

“It was by seeing how much songs meant to my father, as a source of solace, or catharsis, or simply a kind of companionship, that I came to love them myself.”

“If I hated video games, or thought they were all racist, I wouldn’t have a job writing about them. What would the point of that be, to wake up every day and make myself angry? I so much more enjoy doing something I love. For me, taking the time to take apart a piece of media […]

In Amsterdam, a new fight develops over an old master.