The best longform journalism, every Sunday from @DVNJr & @JacobFeldman4. “A newsletter born of love.” — @AirMailWeekly. Since 2014. And: True Crime. The Lineup
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Welcome to @sundaylongread--your new Twitter home for great reads and superb writers, the SLR podcast, our weekly newsletter and more. Enjoy! —DVN
The Ringer recently launched four newsletters by contributors, only one of which is free. Paywalls in the journalism landscape aren't new, but the wrinkle here is that Substack is publishing them and no one will say why. defector.com/nobody-wants-to…
“Youth flag participation has soared in an almost impossibly short time, especially among girls,” Amanda Mull writes for @Bloomberg, featured in this week's The Lineup newsletter. According to data from the National Federation of State High School Associations, more than 100,000 American high school girls played flag football at school during the 2025-26 academic year, which constitutes a 48% jump from the previous year and an increase of more than 550% from just five years ago. bloomberg.com/news/features/…
It’s sliced cheese on bread. And the Danish capital of Copenhagen is obsessed with this stripped-down snack, and the city’s top bakeries won’t stop until they’ve perfected it. nytimes.com/2026/10/19/dinin…
Eighth-grader Richard viewed 4,783 videos during school hours—he’d begin his day with NBA and NFL highlights before pivoting to a mix of police chase footage, cats coughing up hairballs and AI-generated animations of a time-traveling skeleton visiting ancient Rome and the Titanic. In a study of eleven students, ranging from second to 12th grade, @NBCNews found that 95 percent of the videos watched by students during school hours were not educational. nbcnews.com/specials/hooked-…
Fifty years ago, possibly the biggest hot-air balloon around, dubbed the "Spirit of America," took off near Charlotte not long after the U.S.'s 200th birthday. Its three passengers wouldn't make it back down. Mystery surrounds the crash, but even with few details to go on, Scott Fowler & Théoden Janes from @theobserver put together an adventurous look back, full of twists and turns. charlotteobserver.com/news/l…
In this excerpt of a new (and very long) Larry David bio that, of course, the subject now regrets cooperating with, Blake J. Harris dissects the hyper-negative vibe of the co-creator of Seinfeld and the creator of Curb Your Enthusiasm. The LD on-screen isn’t much different from the LD off-screen: a cranky, easily irritated people-loather who is “always capable of finding the gray lining in every silver cloud.” @colossusmag colossus.com/article/many-fa…
One child “feels hard precisely because of how much connection remains, tantalizingly, with your old life: your old hobbies, your old friends, your old functioning brain,” writes Zach Baron in this pitch-perfect essay for @GQMagazine. “With one, you even get to visit this old life from time to time, while your partner or some kindly person at day care takes their turn getting annihilated. With two, that old life is so completely gone it’s like it never even happened. It is a planet you cannot even return to.” gq.com/story/second-child-fa…
In the blockbuster @nytimes exclusive: An “extremely reliable” informant told authorities about the missing murder weapon, according to newly unsealed records. The informant’s brother told The Times his sibling was at the crime scene. nytimes.com/2026/10/18/us/oj…
In our October True Crime roundup, the @nytimes has the story on how a judge exonerated Nancy Smith, an Ohio bus driver, after she was convicted of abusing children in her care. Now, prosecutors want to reverse an order saying she was innocent. nytimes.com/2026/08/25/us/na…
In this week's The Lineup and from @thecityreporter.nyc: “The popularity of the baby name ‘Jalen’ ticked up in the city following the NBA Finals, according to the latest data The City Reporter obtained from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Before the Knicks faced off against the San Antonio Spurs in the Finals series in mid June, just five babies had been named Jalen since March. Since then, 27 more newborns have taken on the name, adding up to a total of 32 Jalens between March and early October this year—more than double the 15 named Jalen over the same time period last year.” thecityreporter.nyc/2026/10/…
Roughly one in six U.S. households are behind on their utility payments, Eli Saslow reports for the @nytimes. As the bills come due, the repercussions can be devastating. Always read Eli, we like to say. But read this one twice. nytimes.com/2026/10/18/us/ok…
For @ELLEmagazine, Véronique Hyland smartly studies why everyone appears to be reading the same five books these days. “The same sense of cultural FOMO that leads us to wait on endless Ticketmaster queues or line up for a new fashion collaboration drop is also driving the rise of books that demand to be discussed,” Hyland writes. elle.com/culture/books/a7376…
For @grubstreet, Rachel Handler endeavors to find out why everything seems to be degrading in quality, one bite of chocolate (and biting remark) at a time. grubstreet.com/article/choco…
The eloquence of fiction-level craft and the power of fact come together in this rending re-telling of a deadly flood in New Mexico that town leaders were warned was coming. @JacobFeldman4's top pick by @abestreep propublica.org/article/wildf…
With razor-sharp prose, Gideon Lewis-Kraus writes that one of the most “monumental collective achievements in our history,” a pantheon that includes Machu Picchu and the Great Wall of China, is the microchip. @DVNJr's top read newyorker.com/magazine/2026/…
Computer Chips, Chocolate Conspiracy, Reading Monoculture & More in this week's SLR mailchi.mp/sundaylongread/oc…
The @BBC profiles Trevor Warmedahl about spending years documenting rare and traditional cheesemaking methods, and believes that "cheese is an edible manifestation of a place." bbc.com/travel/article/20261…
From @Bloomberg, how did Rockstar Games build what is expected to be the biggest video game blockbuster of all time, Grand Theft Auto VI out in November? First it had to rebuild itself. bloomberg.com/features/2026-…
