TheNewsGal, Edition No. 101

What a week! These are the standouts.

All the things

• The Wild, Wonderful World Of Estate Sales. I’m fascinated. (Lizzie Feidelson, New Yorker, ~25 min.)

• For more than half a century, the people of Easter Island lived under an oppressive colonial regime. Then a schoolteacher sparked an unlikely revolution. I’ll read anything about Easter Island, but this is especially terrific. (Mike Damiano, The Atavist, ~73 min.)

• Girl Power Gets Sober: Can Holly Whitaker help women quit drinking better than AA can? I’d been wondering about this company ... (Katie Heaney, The Cut, ~17 min.)

• The secret MVP of sports? The port-a-potty. Waste management stories are the best stories. (Ryan Hockensmith, ESPN, ~19 min.)

(Maisie Cousins for New York Times)

• How Disgust Explains Everything: For psychologists who study it, disgust is one of the primal emotions that define — and explain — humanity. Couldn’t stop reading, even though I was ... disgusted. (Molly Young, New York Times Magazine, ~28 min.)

• Still looking for that picture book you loved as a kid? Try asking Instagram. The coolest. (Rachel Treisman, NPR, ~7 min.)

• The pandemic brought our family’s harasser out of retirement. Here’s how we finally caught him. Holy schnikees. (Tess Kessler, BuzzFeed News, ~27 min.)

• Irene Cybulsky was the only woman in Canada to head a cardiac surgery division — but her all-male staff resented her. When she was replaced with a man, she found a novel way to seek justice. What a badass. (Christina Frangou, Toronto Life, ~26 min.)

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If you read one thing this week

• A plus-sized Jewish lady redneck died in El Paso on Saturday. A hoot of an obituary you don’t want to miss. (Fayettevill Observer, ~2 min.)

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The best from my hiatus

• A Mother-Daughter Duo Connects On The Fly. (Garden & Gun, ~6 min.)

• The teens who hated Abercrombie are the adults shopping there now — and they can’t believe it either. (Washington Post, ~13 min.)

• The wave of body positivity is finally coming to surfing. (Outside, ~8 min.)

• How Justin Timberlake Came Undone. (Slate, ~18 min.)

• They set out to hike three of America’s longest trails in less than a year. What could go wrong? (Los Angeles Times, ~15 min.)

• At age 9, best friends separated fleeing the Nazis. Now, 82 years later, they finally hugged again. (Washington Post, ~9 min.)

• He’s The Brusque Mr. Fix-It For Mexico City’s Accordions. (New York Times, ~9 min.)

• The Bonnie And Clyde Of MAGA World. (Politico, ~38 min.)

• Jennifer Lawrence: “I Didn’t Have A Life. I Thought I Should Go Get One.” (Vanity Fair, ~22 min.)

• Why a toaster from 1949 is still smarter than any sold today. (The Verge, ~5 min.)

• They trusted a coach with their girls and Ivy League ambitions. Now he’s accused of sex abuse. (Washington Post, ~24 min.)

• Mel Brooks Writes It All Down. (New Yorker, ~23 min.)

• Remembering Stand by Me, 35 Years Later. (Portland Monthly, ~12 min.)

• “Magic Dirt”: How the internet fueled, and defeated, the pandemic's weirdest MLM. (NBC News, ~18 min.)

• The Abortion I Didn’t Have. (New York Times Magazine, ~33 min.)

• The escalating costs of being single in America. (Vox, ~23 min.)

• Robin Eileen Bernstein, “a 62-year-old mom who’s been playing drums for nearly five decades,” pays homage to the Rolling Stone who inspired her to become a time-keeper as a teen. (Oldster, ~6 min.)

• Up Ship Creek: When a cargo ship got stuck in the Suez Canal to the tune of $10 billion lost daily in global trade, an amused public giggled — and then our supply pain kicked in. (Vanity Fair, ~27 min.)

• On Succession, Jeremy Strong Doesn’t Get The Joke. (New Yorker, ~32 min.)

• Keanu Reeves Knows The Secrets Of The Universe. (Esquire, ~24 min.)

• Keep This To Yourself. (Kenyon Review, ~22 min.)

• Jamie Raskin’s Year Of Grief And Purpose. (Washington Post, ~21 min.)

• She killed her ex-husband in self-defense. Can she now find peace? (The Guardian, ~37 min.)

  The world reveres Chien-Shiung Wu as a groundbreaking nuclear physicist who made a startling find 65 years ago. But to me, she was Grandma — and I long to know more about her private universe. (Washington Post, ~38 min.)

• As It’s a Wonderful Life turns 75, Karolyn ‘Zuzu’ Grimes reflects on the film that belatedly changed her life. (Washington Post, ~9 min.)

• He Bombed The Nazis, Outwitted The Soviets, And Modernized Christmas. (New York Times, ~16 min.)

• Alison Roman Just Can’t Help Herself. (New Yorker, ~37 min.)

• The American Addiction To Speeding. (Slate, ~21 min.)

• Jason Isbell Is Tired Of Country’s Love Affair With White Nostalgia. (BuzzFeed News, ~34 min.)

• AITA for “perpetuating ethnic stereotypes” about Jorts? (Reddit, ~3 min.)