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Billionaires Considered $800M Buyout of Trump From Ticket

'Atlantic' reports Mike Pence nearly teamed with Condi Rice amid 'Access Hollywood' scandal

(Newser) - One of the big political talkers of the day comes courtesy of the Atlantic , which is out with a lengthy piece on the vice president under the provocative headline of "God's Plan for Mike Pence." Among the interesting nuggets is that Pence considered what amounts to a...

OJ Simpson's Life After Prison Isn't What It Appears

'Right now, he is out trying to make some new friends, because he needs things'

(Newser) - "He’s a senior citizen, he is enjoying his life, and he’s just breathing, learning to exhale after being in jail for a decade," attorney Malcolm LaVergne says of his client. But others say OJ Simpson, released from prison Oct. 1 after nearly nine years, is...

Mom Fights for Son by Declaring She Would Have Aborted Him

Best chance of paying for toddler's pricey cystic fibrosis care is by filing wrongful-birth suit

(Newser) - Jen Gann was talking with someone earlier this year about her toddler Dudley's cystic fibrosis , a noncurable genetic disorder that afflicts sufferers with thick mucus in the lungs, causing lung infections and, for many, early death. In her piece for the Cut , Gann says that when the woman she...

Surgeon Offered to Pierce a Girl's Ears. Then Came the Bill

It was for $1,877, and it's emblematic of our health care spending mess

(Newser) - "Overuse" may seem like a benign word, and that's kind of the problem. In its latest piece on health care waste, ProPublica defines overuse as an umbrella term for a type of waste that includes things like unnecessary tests or surgeries. And it kicks things off with an...

Melania Trump Never Thought He&#39;d Win
Melania Trump
Never Thought He'd Win
longform

Melania Trump Never Thought He'd Win

'She didn't want this come hell or high water,' an insider tells 'Vanity Fair'

(Newser) - Count Melania Trump among those surprised that her husband won the presidency. A profile of the first lady at Vanity Fair quotes two insiders who say that Melania gave Donald Trump an ultimatum of sorts: Either run for the presidency or stop brooding about it. "She was very clearly...

Meet the Last 3 People Still Using an Iron Lung
Meet the Last 3 People
Still Using an Iron Lung
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Meet the Last 3 People Still Using an Iron Lung

Gizmodo writer visits them all, and finds that the logistics of survival are scary

(Newser) - When Jonas Salk's vaccine largely wiped out polio in the US back in the 1950s, it eliminated a once-common sight: rows of iron lungs in hospitals used to help victims breathe. But the need for those life-saving contraptions hasn't been entirely eliminated. Jennings Brown of Gizmodo visits three...

They Dreamed About an NBA Future. Instead, They Got Scammed

Yearlong Fusion probe into prep school basketball reveals the common cons of the industry

(Newser) - They were young hoops shooters who paid more than $25,000 a year to attend what they thought was an elite basketball academy that would prep them for the NBA. What they got instead, per a deep dive at Fusion , was ripped off. It's a close look by Luke...

The American Dream of a Paved Future Is Crumbling
The American Dream of a
Paved Future Is Crumbling
Longform

The American Dream of a Paved Future Is Crumbling

'If the roads are failing, it means government is failing'

(Newser) - “I never dreamed that by the end of my career we would be talking about having to go back to gravel,” a former highway department head tells Harper's Magazine , which takes a deep look at America's "countless failed roads." One nonprofit estimates that more...

As Number of US, Russia Nukes Falls, Lethality Rises

Modernization means countries' arsenals are growing more deadly: Reuters

(Newser) - President Trump's policy goals show he aims to dismantle much of President Obama's legacy, but there's one element of that legacy he's embracing: a nuclear modernization program that Scot Paltrow at Reuters writes is leading to a new arms race. In the lengthy piece, Paltrow explains...

Odd Professional Title: D&amp;D &#39;Dungeon Master&#39;
He Makes a Decent Living
as a D&D 'Dungeon Master'
longform

He Makes a Decent Living as a D&D 'Dungeon Master'

'Wired' profiles New York City's Timm Woods

(Newser) - Like a lot of kids, Timm Woods developed an intense fascination with the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Unlike a lot of those kids, the 30-year-old Woods is now making a living at it as an adult. Wired profiles the Brooklyn resident and his unusual profession: that of a "...

They Volunteer to Find Missing Bodies. They're Getting Old

A look at the incredible work done by NecroSearch

(Newser) - The revelation earlier this year that a Colorado man had buried his estranged wife's body under the grave of a World War II veteran in 1995 grabbed headlines. What was less mentioned about the case of Kristina Tournai-Sandoval is that the nonprofit NecroSearch is the one that confirmed...

Are Amazon's 'Last Mile' Drivers 'Utterly Expendable'?

Gizmodo says contracted workers aren't exactly living the dream that job ads push

(Newser) - Amazon has an open secret that few pay heed to: a "nearly invisible workforce" that works to get consumers their packages on demand, per Gizmodo . Bryan Menegus dives into the company's Flex program, responsible for the firm's "last-mile" service, which involves getting ordered goods to a...

In US Army Vault, 'Heinous' Art Includes a Hitler Bust

Andrew Beaujon explores Nazi art collection at Fort Belvoir

(Newser) - Getting to the 3-foot bust of Adolf Hitler, taken from his mountaintop retreat known as the Eagle's Nest, was a monthslong effort. Even on the day that Andrew Beaujon would set his eyes upon it, he had to pass through a security gate, drive a mile to its host...

This May Be the Most Secretive State in the Nation

'Kansas City Star' explores the state's unusually tight-lipped bureaucracy

(Newser) - Kansas doesn't just try to manage the flow of information to the public about government doings, it throttles it. After a months-long investigation, the Kansas City Star concludes that Kansas "runs one of the most secretive state governments in the nation." The newspaper finds that this lack...

They Weathered War, PTSD, and Prison. Love Prevailed

The 'New York Times' has the story of Samuel Siatta and Ashley Volk

(Newser) - A loop of blue dental floss is one of Ashley Volk's treasured possessions, and it's introduced at the start of a New York Times article on a moving story of a modern love that overcame great obstacles. The Chicago woman first spotted it on the ring finger of...

To Be a Sportswriter, She Invented a Man. He Was a Monster

The baseball writer abusing women online was actually a teen girl

(Newser) - Over the past eight years, Ryan Schultz—a married father of two studying to be a pharmacist—has been a prolific online baseball writer. He's also been a serial harasser of women, who claim he would get drunk, force himself into their online lives, "get aggressively horny,"...

It's the World's Biggest Radio Dish, and It's Looking for ETs

In the Chinese countryside, a structure that searches for 'a civilization's fainter radio whispers'

(Newser) - Nestled in southwest China lies the largest radio dish in the world, and Ross Andersen reveals in the Atlantic the dish's purpose: to serve as "Earth's first flagship observatory custom-built to listen for a message from an extraterrestrial intelligence." Andersen journeyed into the remote countryside to...

Botox Has Hidden Deadly Toxin Somewhere in America

Inside the deadly secrets, maximum security of the Botox empire

(Newser) - It sounds like something out of Mission: Impossible. The laboratory in Irvine, California, is protected by locked door after locked door, glass barriers, double-paned windows, metal-enclosed workstations, video surveillance, and 24-hour guards. And a waiver lets visitors know they risk complete paralysis just by entering. At the center of all...

The Russian Spies Who Lived Among Us
The Russian Spies
Who Lived Among Us
Longform

The Russian Spies Who Lived Among Us

Russia's post-Cold War efforts against the US didn't start with the 2016 election

(Newser) - In the mid-2000s, Michael Zottoli was working at a Seattle-area telecom firm, annoying coworkers with complaints about President Bush and phone arguments with his wife, Patricia Mills. Zottoli and Mills seemed like an ordinary—if unhappy—couple, but they were actually Mikhail Kutsik and Natalia Pereverzeva, Russian spies. The outing...

The Opioid Epidemic Has a Quiet Side Hustle in Urine
How Opioid Patients' Urine
Became 'Liquid Gold'
longform

How Opioid Patients' Urine Became 'Liquid Gold'

Urine tests have gotten sophisticated, and some pain doctors have gotten rich

(Newser) - The article calls it "liquid gold," and that might be only a slight exaggeration. A lengthy piece by Fred Schulte and Elizabeth Lucas for the non-profit Kaiser Health News that was picked up by Bloomberg examines a side business that has sprung up alongside the opioid epidemic: pricey...

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