The 8.6.17 Issue

Highlights

Feature
Losing It in the Anti-Dieting Age
The agonies of being overweight — or running a diet company — in a culture that likes to pretend it only cares about health, not size.
By Taffy Brodesser-Akner
CreditPhoto Illustration by Todd McLellan
Feature
She Was Convicted of Killing Her Mother. Prosecutors Withheld the Evidence That Would Have Freed Her.
By the time Noura Jackson’s conviction was overturned, she had spent nine years in prison. This type of prosecutorial error is almost never punished.
By Emily Bazelon
CreditHarris Mizrahi for The New York Times
Feature
The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe
As the Voyager mission is winding down, so, too, are the careers of the aging explorers who expanded our sense of home in the galaxy.
By Kim Tingley
CreditGraeme Mitchell for The New York Times
Talk
Nicolle Wallace Thinks White House Staffers Need to Have a Limit
The political analyst on Sarah Palin and the difficulty of covering non-Trump news.
Interview by Ana Marie Cox
CreditCeleste Sloman for The New York Times

What Does It Take to ‘Assimilate’ in America?
Americans often worry whether newcomers will adapt to our way of life. But we’ve never quite decided just what it is we demand of them.
By Laila Lalami
CreditPhoto illustration by Derek Brahney
First Words
If SoundCloud Disappears, What Happens to Its Music Culture?
The platform offered a public space with monetization as an afterthought. Now it could simply be deleted.
By Jenna Wortham
CreditIllustration by Jon Han
On Technology
He Thought He Had Caught His Co-Worker’s Stomach Bug. Why Were His Symptoms So Different?
Instead of intense pain and diarrhea, he just felt a little sore and developed a blazing fever.
By Lisa Sanders, M.d.
CreditIllustration by Andreas Samuelsson
Diagnosis
Why You Should Burn Your Vegetables
For this Mexican-style slaw, use the power of fire and smoke.
By Sam Sifton
CreditGentl and Hyers for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Amy Wilson.
Eat
Letter of Recommendation: Ghosting
A seed of indifference that leads to a disappearing act.
By Maya Binyam
CreditPhoto illustration by Mike McQuade
Letter of Recommendation

Can I Keep a Baby My Boyfriend Doesn’t Want?
The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on staying pregnant against a boyfriend’s wishes and whether a rape survivor can do research on sexual violence.
By Kwame Anthony Appiah
CreditIllustration by Tomi Um
The Ethicist
Judge John Hodgman on the Schrodinger-Like Nature of Chicken Tenders
Whether they materialize in our plane of existence as an entree or appetizer depends on the observer.
By John Hodgman
CreditIllustration by Kyle Hilton
Judge John Hodgman
New Sentences: From ‘An Arrangement of Skin,’ by Anna Journey
How it feels to be stripped of a small but long-held belief.
By Sam Anderson
Credit
New Sentences
How to Lament
Make the tears visible. Alliterate rather than rhyme. Improvise.
By Malia Wollan
CreditIllustration by Radio.
Tip
Prediagnosis
Selected by Terrance Hayes.
Selected by Terrance Hayes
Credit
Poem

How to Stay Sane During a Solar Eclipse
The terrifying beauty of totality is best confronted in a crowd.
By Helen Macdonald