"Did an experienced alpinist leave his girlfriend to die at the top of a mountain?"

In this edition: Concrete memories, grief science, captive cats, relentless pain, and myth meets reality.

"Route 85 in California now inspires dread. Some of us remember when it was a vision of the future."

"Forty years after breaking away from Antarctica, the frozen colossus known as A23a died as it lived: drifting around the bottom of the globe, fascinating ardent observers, and offering scientists critical new insights about our living ocean."

"As of May 2026, you can no longer buy or sell exotic cats in British Columbia. What do we do with them all now?"

"How China’s short dramas are redefining entertainment."

"When an alligator kills someone in America, it can make international headlines. What happens to the thousands of gators that people deem 'nuisances' does not."

"Masha Polska, 15, was an avid dancer who had been dreaming of a star turn in the group waltz. That was not to be."

"Netflix’s new adaptation of the beloved book series will probably leave out some of the most fascinating details from the author’s life—from Pa Ingalls’s ineptitude to the serial killers that stalked Kansas during her childhood."

"It felt like a stabbing. It felt like a burning. It felt like a dull ache, then a sharp one, then it radiated all the way down."

The author of Any Person Is the Only Self and recent Guggenheim fellow talks about the worst time of day, the value of wasting an hour, and chilaquiles.

"Johnny Knoxville and his band of merry pranksters got me through one of the worst weeks of my life."

"In most of the country, executions are a thing of the past. But one state has been carrying them out at a record pace."

"After my husband’s death, I had never been more pliable, tender, open, or raw. It was then that I tried E.M.D.R. therapy."

"I am yearning to reject something that is not even being sold to me."

In southeastern Italy, almond groves hold centuries of local history. A granddaughter returns to gather the bitter and the sweet.

"The price and quality of the $1.50 Costco frank haven’t budged in 40 years. It’s the last—and best—deal in the country."

"My journey inside the world of LARPing, where hustlebros pretend to be rich for TikTok."

"Rory Feldman was accused of deceiving, defrauding, and stealing. But he says he’s been the target of a relentless smear campaign by a 'magic mafia.'"

"Turf wars. Food and fire hazards. $15 ice-cream cones. How an organized network of unlicensed food trucks took over America's Front Lawn."

"What Darwin saw in the Galápagos."

"In remote rivers, prospectors still hunt for treasure .They even hold tournaments."

Roberto José Andrade Franco | ESPN | June 30, 2026 | 5,652 words

"A dispatch from the final Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, where the drinks were good, and the nature documentaries were, for the most part, sad."

Making stuff up is harder, stranger, and occasionally more dangerous than it looks. Seven stories that explore the world of constructed languages.

"Through hosting two decades of Top Chef, writing four books, and opening restaurants across the country, the celebrity chef never stopped showing up to cook in the kitchen of Craft, his pioneering New York restaurant. Until he decided to close it."

"Five years after Anthony Broadwater was belatedly cleared for the sexual assault of Alice Sebold, the questions of how he came to be wrongly convicted and how one or more serial rapists operated for years with little consequence have only deepened."

"Lone-star ticks don’t just pursue and bite people. The affliction they’re spreading, an allergy to red meat known as alpha-gal syndrome, attacks a way of life."

"Forget Vin Diesel. Asian Americans are the heroes of import car culture."

"The clip is something like the primary episteme of the World Cup, for the simple reason that there is too much soccer."