The Weight of an Empty Chair
Chronic absenteeism in NM public schools
One Saturday a month, Angel Kirby, elementary principal at Albuquerque’s Mission Achievement and Success Charter School (MAS), spends her day off looking for missing children. Some of the kids have failed to show up to school for weeks at a time; others have been unreachable when absences piled up and attendance staff called their parents’ phones.
Out to Sea
On the exploitation of whales and the rights of cetatceans
One morning in the spring of 2019 a beluga whale swam up beside a red fishing boat off the far north coast of Norway. Eleven feet long and gleaming white, the animal drew close, tugging the ship’s ropes, rubbing against its hull, and opening his mouth as if expecting food.
Joar Hesten watched the whale from the boat’s deck. It was unusual to see a beluga so far south at that time of year.
What Falls to Earth
On suicide and meteors
On June 30, 1908, a star-like body with a fiery tail tore through the clear morning sky above the vast Siberian forest. As it neared the ground, a column of light shot twelve miles into the air. Booms like artillery followed, and stones rained from the sky; houses shook and windows shattered. A wave of intense heat threw people from their chairs. Hundreds of reindeer scattered and burned.
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