Staff members’ demands helped end the tenure of James Bennet as Opinion editor of The New York Times. And they are generating tension at The Washington Post. Part of the story starts in Ferguson, Mo.

“It has never been my expectation that every piece the New York Times publishes will confirm my personal worldview, but it was also never my expectation The Times would run an op-ed calling for state violence.”

“African-American reporters at the time could actually tell you which riot got them hired.”

“If you want diverse newsrooms, hire folks, full time. Period. That fact that POC always need a trial run says it ALL.”

How do we move away from 50 years of lip service to sustained newsroom diversity? This survey, conducted by this collection’s curator Carla Murphy, points the way.

Nearly 80 Latino staffers at the @latimes sent a letter to the owner and managers demanding a newspaper that truly reflects the community.

“This was a hard choice, since I loved being a local science reporter. But STLPR’s leaders need to change the station’s toxic culture or journalists of color will continue to leave.”

So what next steps can we as an industry take?

Former public radio reporter Brenda Salinas and former public television producer Cecilia Garcia reflect on how far public media hasn’t come on “diversity” in the last forty years—and why.

How whiteness dilutes voices of color at public radio stations.

Gannett said it will “make its workforce as diverse as the country by 2025 and to [sic] expand the number of journalists focused on covering issues related to race and identity, social justice and equality.”

A hard look at journalism and how it has been complicit in upholding systemic racism.

In Canada, under the banner of diversity, racialized people are told to bring ourselves and our perspectives. But, if we bring too much of them, we get held back.

The broadcaster and historian argues racism has led to a ‘lost generation’ of minority ethnic people in the UK TV industry.

“It wasn’t like, I’m going to plot to take down Condé Nast,” says Tammie Teclemariam.

In the midst of the national uprising for Black lives sparked by a white police officer’s killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a wave of protests broke out in newsrooms across the country, from the New York Times to Refinery29. The first of these were directly tied to issues of racism and anti-Blackness, but they have since expanded to the broader problem of toxic leadership in the industry, and the dominance of white men and women in positions of power.

Some sleep on electromagnetic mats, others pop up to 150 pills a day. But are ‘life extensionists’ any closer to finding the key to longevity?

It’s based on the substance that causes botulism. That’s part of what protects Allergan’s $2.8 billion Botox empire.

If this controversial idea gains acceptance, it could radically change the way we treat getting old.

Brands are still selling the idea of trying to look younger — they’ve just changed the vocabulary.

At the dawn of a new decade, I wondered: How many more decades can I live?

The peat found in some anti-oxidant-rich wetlands has preserved the youthfulness of thousand-year-old corpses. Can it do the same for those who are still alive?

Five years after her mother’s death, while still grieving and suddenly middle-aged, one writer turns to beauty products to cure what ails her.

Some researchers have cast doubt on the record of the celebrated supercentenarian.

I went to Florida recently to follow the traces of the traces of the legend of Juan Ponce de León.

An argument that society and families—and you—will be better off if nature takes its course swiftly and promptly.

Inside the strange, predatory, and lucrative world of psychics who have successfully scammed customers out of their life savings, and the private investigator who’s trying to put a stop to it.

Investors all over the world fell for the schemes of the man who called himself Khalid bin al-Saud. But the truth turned out to be more incredible than the lie.

While searching for the person who grifted me in Chicago, I discovered just how easy it is for users of the short-term rental platform to get exploited.

Fraudsters see opportunities to target us in these uncertain times. Here are their most popular schemes and how we can protect ourselves.

The story of New York City’s most notorious faux heiress-turned-inmate, Anna Delvey, and the wild antics that won her intrigue—and tens of thousands of dollars.

Are con artists clinical psychopaths—or are they just slightly more devious versions of our more conniving selves?

The pink princess philodendron is the ultimate Instagram plant, with three-digit price tags to match. The following it cultivated was also ripe for deception.

The son of a bank robber and sibling of a psychopath explains how he found his own calling scamming a litany of unsuspecting suckers.

Frisland never existed, but for centuries, people wanted to believe that it did.

People and businesses routinely use five techniques to get us to do what they want. Here’s how to recognize them.

That old adage that you can be anything you want? Well, Jeremy Wilson has lived it for years, crisscrossing the country and inventing new identities. A war hero, an MIT grad, a Hollywood journalist, an IRA operative—Jeremy has claimed to be all those things and more. And oh, what a mess he’s made.

Nicolas DeMeyer was a scammer. Or a hero for the age of inequality. Or a young man haunted by the death of a dear friend. Or all of these things.

The search for one woman’s family led a reporter to find her own roots using oral history, archives and DNA tests. It also led to stunning results.

Joy and her super smelling abilities have opened up a whole new realm of research.

The last original Dr. Seuss book was released in 1990. No one at Random House expected an unpublished book to appear 24 years after Theodor Seuss Geisel’s death.

Neither animal, plant, fungus nor familiar protozoan, a strange microbe that sits in its own “supra-kingdom” of life foretells incredible biodiversity yet to be discovered by new sequencing technologies.

Discovering a lottery loophole made Jerry and Marge Selbee millionaires, sparked an investigation by a Boston Globe Spotlight reporter, unleashed a statewide political scandal and exposed more than a few hypocrisies at the heart of America’s favorite form of legalized gambling.

First found only on the sun, scientists doubted the mysterious element even existed for more than a decade.

Researchers first observed the previously unnamed shape in a computer model. They then went to nature and found it in abundance.

Manny Medrano cut loose on spring break by analyzing a set of khipus.

How one carefully calibrated study—and its shocking results—upended the academic system.

Kansas City Chiefs running backs coach Deland McCullough went searching for his biological parents. He found them where he never would have expected.

A century after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, it’s worth remembering why suffragists had to fight so hard, and who was fighting against them.

The material history of the movement reveals many of its priorities and problems, and its relevance to the persisting struggles for equal rights today.

This leading suffragist devoted her life to the movement but never got to vote—legally at least.

The process varied by state, with some making accommodations for the new voting bloc and others creating additional obstacles

Racism and sexism were bound together in the fight to vote – and Black women made it clear they would never cede the question of their voting rights to others

The anti-suffragist women would become a nationwide force that would influence later generations of conservative women. And today, a century after women gained the right to vote, echoes of their message remain.

One hundred years ago, a powerful strain of the flu swept the globe, infecting one third of the world’s population. The aftermath of this disaster, too, led to unexpected social changes, opening up new opportunities for women and in the process irreversibly transforming life in the United States.

“Would you rather have a vote than a husband?”

The 19th Amendment did not bring the right to vote to all Native women, but two experts in a conversation said it did usher in the possibility of change.

On the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, trace the route of the national women’s suffrage movement and stand in the spots where history happened.

The women who remain locked out of the right to vote are the fractured legacy of a fractured movement.

Despite being a heartbeat from the presidency, this role was surprisingly ill-defined throughout much of the country’s history.

Almost everyone knows the White House, but few people know that the vice president has an official residence of their own.

Was John Tyler really president after pneumonia claimed the life of William Henry Harrison? In 1841, the country wasn’t sure.

A hoax about the president’s death led him to believe he was Commander-in-Chief—and it paralyzed him with fear.

To date, Charles Dawes is the only Vice President to have a song chart at #1, though he missed the whole thing.

The possibility of a sudden succession now plays a larger part in the selection of Vice-Presidents, but not always.

The U.S. vice presidency has been filled by a rogues gallery of mediocrities, criminals and even corpses.

John Adams, the first vice president: “I am Vice President. In this I am nothing, but I may be everything.”

Choosing a running mate used to be more about campaigning than governing. But after Richard Nixon’s ruinous relationship with Spiro Agnew, the job has changed. Introducing the executive vice presidency.

“Once there was another city here, and now it is gone. There are almost no traces of it anymore, but millions of us know it existed, because we lived in it: the Lost City of New York.”

“Kennedy’s face had a kind of sweet acceptance to it, the eyes understanding that it had come to him, the way it had come to so many others before him. The price of the attempt at excellence was death”

“We were gathered at a large table in the Tweed Courthouse, discussing over bagels and coffee its future as a symbol of civilization, a museum of the history of New York. About 8:45, we heard a boom.”

“He is the sort of artist, like the aforementioned Picasso, who is always in the process of becoming. I think of this as a kind of interim report from one of the bravest human beings I know.”

“The Man of the Decade? Easy—that guy who built, uh, What’s-his-name Tower.”

“For too long a time, I loved the brutal sport of prizefighting. But I’ve arrived at last at that cold morning. You cannot love anything that lives in a sewer.”

“It is no accident that Nixon was from California. He was a master of desecration. And make no mistake: this place has been desecrated.”

“Count your blessings: if you ever wrote a regular column for the New York Daily News you’ve had one of the best jobs in the history of newspapers, a ringside seat at the greatest show on Earth.”

Human memory happens in many parts of the brain at once, and some types of memories stick around longer than others.

Memory researchers say these months will eventually become a blur for those of us isolating at home.

An extremely rare condition may transform our understanding of memory.

The strange case of the woman who can’t remember her past—or imagine her future.

Over the years, hundreds of people online have shared memories of a cheesy Nineties movie called “Shazaam.” There is no evidence that such a film was ever made. What does this tell us about the quirks of collective memory?

Long-term, immediate, and habitual methods for keeping your memories fresh and clear.

… and the movies and TV shows we watch.

Your brain needs to forget in order to grow.

Societies forget, and this physicist wants to know why.

Scientists are beginning to understand that plants have abilities, previously unnoticed and unimagined, that we’ve only ever associated with animals.

Of the many experts who figured in Henry Molaison’s life, one man would change him into amnesiac patient H.M., but two women ensured he would never be forgotten.

Nope. It’s much, much weirder than that.

An excerpt from Christine Hyung-Oak Lee’s memoir Tell Me Everything You Don’t Remember: The Stroke That Changed My Life.

Without the changes in the brain that allow you to learn new skills, nothing would be “as easy as learning to ride a bike.”

Perseverance’s biggest goal is to dig up samples to bring back to Earth one day.

How habitable was early Mars? Why did it become less hospitable? And could there be life there now?

I spent four months pretending to live on Mars. Here’s what I learned about staying sane and passing time.

Elon Musk wants to engineer Mars’ atmosphere. Can he?

The author behind Game of Thrones spent his childhood reading stories about Mars and hoping to write one himself. As new discoveries on the red planet capture the world’s attention, he surveys a rich Martian literature.

Percival Lowell’s dogged belief helped bring Mars science to 19th century America.

A mission atop a Hawaiian volcano shows humans still have much to learn before they set foot on another world.

Astrobiologists have used Mars Jars for decades. Many didn’t know about the controversial Air Force scientist who started them.

The DIY explorers who dream of a 35-million-mile trek.

Is the Red Planet really the best target for a human colony?

But this jerk planet is still humanity’s best hope for another home in the cosmos.

Never underestimate the power of snacks and serendipity.

Serendipity is credited with some of our most important discoveries, from penicillin to super glue. But what is it?

How George de Mestral invented the velcro fastener.

The much-loved children’s toy was a desperate spinoff of a putty used to clean soot off of wallpaper

No one was initially more skeptical of the existence of X-rays than Wilhelm Roentgen — the man who discovered them.

Three different artificial sweeteners have been the result of scientists with poor hand hygiene.

The discovery of penicillin, one of the world’s first antibiotics, marks a true turning point in human history. Many school children can recite the basics. But there is much more to this historic sequence of events.

When he started fiddling with chemicals in his home in March 1856, William Henry Perkin had no idea what was about to happen.

Quick-bonding adhesive was a happy accident of wartime research.