Addiction, North Korea and Bananas: Your Sunday morning reading covered
Highlighting the best in-depth journalism we’ve found this week.
Inside the ‘Walmart of heroin’
The city of Philadelphia estimates that 75,000 of its citizen are addicted to opioids in some form. Many of those 75,000 will commute to a single area — Kensington — to buy drugs.
In this New York Times feature we meet some of those affected, in an attempt to understand more about the opioid crisis that is gripping the US.
“There had been more than 1,200 overdose deaths in Philadelphia in 2017 — a 34% rise from 2016.”
The man who would be king
He’s the world’s most controversial leader, but most of us know very little about him. Here, the BBC looks in depth at the reign of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
“He was short-tempered and had a lack of tolerance. When his mother tried to tell him off for playing too much and not studying enough, he wouldn’t talk back, but he would protest in other ways like going on hunger strike.”
Beauty and the CEO
This week the CEO of a hugely successful beauty company took to Instagram, announcing he was shutting all all operations, and accusing people in his company of widespread criminal activity.
The thing is, it’s not the first time he’s shocked the business world on social media, and now his incendiary character could threaten the company he built.
“He’s used the platform to insult fans, cancel partnerships, and even posted a photo of an impoverished-looking New Yorker in front of one of the brand’s stores.”
Does GM deserve its bad rep?
Are GM crops the unlikely saviour of our food security? As bananas face extinction (yes!) scientists are racing to find a way of protecting the world’s favourite fruit against a new disease –called TR4.
But they’ll have to overcome the opposition to GM foods first (disclaimer: there’s a lot about the science of bananas in here).
“He hopes to see the edited Cavendish on sale by 2021 — the first genetically-modified (GM) bananas ever sold in Australia.”
Icelandic noir
And finally to Reykjavik, and the story of six people who admitted murder, without remembering anything about the crimes. This one was originally published in 2004, but it’s gripping, and very nordic noir-y.
“This is what happened to Gudmundur, lost among the Huldufolk, the mythical elves of Icelandic folklore who live in the dark spaces under the lava.”
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