TheNewsGal, Edition No. 83

What a week! These are the standouts.

All the things

• A First Lady for All of Us: On the Road with Dr. Jill Biden. I’m a fan. (Jonathan Van Meter, Vogue, ~27 min.)

• I Write About the Law. But Could I Really Help Free a Prisoner? Stunning. (Emily Bazelon, NYT Magazine, ~41 min.)

• Nowhere Is Ready for This Heat: All across America, the infrastructure we have was built for the wrong century. Truly a hot mess. (Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, ~5 min.)

(Courtesy Washington Post)

• Letters from Hong Kong’s jails: These are the faces of Hong Kong’s democracy movement, now jailed or exiled. Wow. (Shibani Mahtani and Theodora Yu, Washington Post, ~23 min.)

• The Night Gary Drove Me Home. In the 1980s, I met a man at a dance hall. One night I took him home. Nearly four decades later, I made a chilling discovery. My god. (Jill McCabe Johnson, Slate, ~11 min.)

• Is There a Right Way to Act Blind? Activists slammed the TV show In the Dark for casting a sighted actress in a blind lead role. But what if blindness is a performance of its own? I’m fascinated. (Andrew Leland, NYT Magazine, ~23 min.)

• The rural, biracial juror on the Chauvin trial: “It was absolutely traumatic.” Yeesh. (Deena Winter, Minnesota Reformer, ~5 min.)

(Irina Rozovsky, Vulture)

• The Other Woman: Jennifer Coolidge spins roles as trophy wives and divorcées into comic gold. Now she gets to show what else she can do. Now this is fun. (E. Alex Jung, Vulture, ~16 min.)

• The Gaslighting of Sha’Carri Richardson. Still mad. (David Alm, Runner’s World, ~5 min.)

• In a World Without Sushi: On family, salmon, and survival. Personal and urgent. (Juhea Kim, Guernica, ~21 min.)

• The Enduring Spectacle of Fat Suits in Hollywood. So bad. (Hazel Cills, Jezebel, ~9 min.)

(Caroline Tompkins, SSENSE)

• So, Mina Kimes Walks Into A Bar ... The NFL Sportswriter and Analyst Plays By Her Own Rules. Both story and subject are smart and fun. (Emma Carmichael, SSENSE, ~13 min.)

• Britney Spears’ Conservatorship Nightmare: How the pop star’s father and a team of lawyers seized control of her life — and have held on to it for 13 years. A must-read. (Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino, New Yorker, ~50 min.)

• In awe of Simone Biles’ greatness, with my daughter and 25,000 others. A joy to read. (Kevin Van Valkenburg, ESPN, ~13 min.)

• Let’s Grow Some Things. A lovely essay on backyard gardening. (Austin L. Ray, Defector, ~9 min.)

(Katherine Frey, Washington Post)

• Their neighbors called covid-19 a hoax. Can these ICU nurses forgive them? Tough reading. (Peter Jamison, Washington Post, ~22 min.)

• “They said I don’t exist. But I am here.” One woman’s battle to prove she isn’t dead. I can’t believe this is real. (Kim Willsher, The Guardian, ~17 min.)

• Want to start collecting vintage Pyrex? You’ve got competition. Who knew?! (Amy McCarthy, Eater, ~9 min.)

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If you read one thing this week

• Day of Rage: An In-Depth Look at How a Mob Stormed the Capitol. Oops, this one you have to watch. An incredible feat of journalism. (New York Times, ~40 min.)