u/Ok_Writer3166

I am closing out the week early to enjoy the holiday weekend, so I wanted to share a few stories we included in the newsletter this week that haven't gotten a lot of attention.

• The Atlantic (Gift Link): A Cheap Fix for Urban Crime
• The New Yorker (Archive Link): The Prehistory of A.I. Slop
• ABC News Australia: The ‘AI psychosis’ that begins with a chatbot conversation
• The Hollywood Reporter: At Gawker, They Battled a Billionaire. 10 Years Later, the Scars Are Still Healing
• New Lines Magazine: How Armed Groups in Colombia Use Social Media To Recruit Children

Ok, that is all I have. Have a great weekend!

Sunday Long Read: Hanoi’s humble beer glass and the memory of a nation

I love the Sunday Long Read (you should subscribe!), and I always enjoy when they drop a new original essay. This weekend's was no different.

The Atlantic (Gift Link): The Mystery of the Golden Coffin

I shared this one in my newsletter last week, and I re-read it over the weekend because it is wild to me that in 2026 we are still seeing the wholesale theft of antiquities.

The Atlantic (Gift Link): Dinah’s Hat

I know we typically share reporting/essays here, but Stephen King released a new short story last week, and I really enjoyed it.

The Washington Post (Gift Link): She was deported without her toddler. Then ICE blamed her for his killing.

I don't usually offer a warning before sharing a story, we are all adults here, but I cried by the 4th paragraph and had to stop multiple times. It is god awful, but it is also important that this baby boy's suffering is not forgotten. Please tread lightly.

Hi friends - wanted to share some of the standout stories I have read this week. Hope you enjoy.

Mother Jones: ChatGPT Gave Me Chilling Advice—as I Simulated Planning a Mass Shooting

ICIJ: How Merck turned its wonder drug into a blockbuster — and priced out cancer patients worldwide

NYT (Gift Link): Her Self-Experiment With Drug Detox Almost Broke Her

Wall Street Journal (Gift Link): Why Almost Everyone Loses—Except a Few Sharks—on Prediction Markets

Also, I introduced "Lunch Break Reads 15" this week for new subscribers. It is my personal list of all-timers. If you're interested, subscribe using this link and I will send it to you.

Have a great weekend!

• Atavist Magazine: A federal agent spent 15 months undercover as a taxidermist in a Colorado valley where his landlord was one of his targets and threatened to shoot him if he figured it out.
• Denverite: A Denver reporter spent months following Suzanne McKinney, a former attorney living blind in her car near Washington Park, as neighbors, police, and advocates all tried and failed to move her indoors.
• The Atlantic (Gift Link): The Savannah Bananas have revived the Indianapolis Clowns, a real Negro Leagues franchise with a complicated history of minstrelsy, and are trying to use it to bring Black players back to baseball.
• The Guardian: Rodney Wilkinson was the best fencer in South Africa at 21. In December 1982, he walked four limpet mines into Koeberg nuclear power station, pulled the pins on each one, had farewell drinks with colleagues standing on top of the devices, and rode out on his bicycle.

If you're interested in a daily lunchtime e-mail with 4 interesting longform stories, maybe my newsletter is for you.

Texas Monthly is back with a new longform story about Paul Pressler, a towering figure in the Southern Baptist Church. A GOP kingmaker, he has faced credible accusations of sexual abuse.

Hi friends, I wanted to move my longform posting to a fresh account to improve Reddit search and whatnot. So, if you enjoyed any of my posts from my old account for Lunch Break Reads, you can continue enjoying them from this account.

Anyhow, please enjoy these stories from yesterday's newsletter!

1. Secrets of the Bees (~20 min) — National Geographic / Hannah Nordhaus

Scientists once dismissed bee behavior as pure instinct. Decades of lab experiments have dismantled that. Researcher Lars Chittka at Queen Mary University has shown bumblebees can count landmarks, pull strings for rewards, and teach those behaviors to colony mates. In Finland, Olli Loukola is testing whether bees can solve novel problems through insight rather than trial and error. The same intelligence that makes bees great pollinators may also make them more resilient to the habitat loss that has killed 55 percent of American colonies in the past year.

2. Adopted and Locked Away (~15 min) — Associated Press / Claire Galofaro and Sally Ho

An AP investigation finds adopted children make up an estimated 25 to 40 percent of kids in for-profit residential treatment centers, despite being just 2 percent of the American child population. Facilities charge up to $20,000 a month, often for reactive attachment disorder, a diagnosis experts say is routinely misapplied. Children report physical restraint, strip searches, and forced labor. Private equity firms have moved in, with analysts noting 20 percent profit margins tied to long enrollment stays and minimal staffing costs.

3. The Last Days of Butter Ridge [Gift Link] (~15 min) — New York Times Magazine / Eli Saslow

Brad Watson, 41, milked his last cows on a 326-acre Pennsylvania farm his family had worked since before the Civil War. Feed and fuel costs rose up to 500 percent. New tariffs cut into export markets. Farm bankruptcies rose 55 percent in 2024, 46 percent in 2025, and another 70 percent so far in 2026. Brad had voted for Trump expecting relief. None came. When the auction ended, he walked back into the empty barn and found his 14-year-old son Boyd, leading the one calf they had kept.

4. Your Next Dog May Live Longer [Gift Link] (~15 min) — The Atlantic / Michael Crawley

Celine Halioua founded Loyal in 2019 with a plan to extend dogs' lives using a daily pill that restores insulin sensitivity. In early 2025, the FDA deemed it reasonably likely to be effective, an unusual path for a life-extension compound rather than a disease-specific drug. More than 1,300 dogs are enrolled in a five-year trial. The pill could sell for around $100 a month. Halioua's longer goal is human longevity, using dog trials as a faster regulatory pathway. Dogs, she notes, have always gone first into dangerous new frontiers on behalf of their owners.