Best of 2017: Under-Recognized Stories

Before Kate died at age 67, she knew she wanted to die in her house, to be laid out there, and to have everyone come and spend as much time as they wished with her body.

Joe Caldwell was a star at the dawn of the modern NBA. Then the sport took everything from him.

The first time I heard John Tesh’s voice was in the passenger seat of my dad’s Mazda, driving through upstate New York as part of a road trip to visit colleges. Tesh was hosting his daily radio show and he was telling an interminable story with no point, but I ate that shit up. It was only later that I’d see the famous Red Rocks video David Roth mentions in his wonderful story about Tesh’s NBA on NBC anthem, or learn anything about that part of Tesh’s life. But through the story of that instrumental anthem — which remains a banger — and his conversation with Tesh, Roth manages to tease out…

As the social contract frays, what does it mean to be polite?

Humor never really felt like an option in such a serious year, but Jeong’s simian legal saga reminded me that humor shouldn’t be so disposable. Her story isn’t really about the monkey; it’s about who can rightfully be considered the “next friend” of an Internet-famous crested macaque. It’s about whether or not we can fight the good fight and giggle our way through it and still make a case for justice when it really matters. Bonkers things happened in 2017 — absurd, hilarious things — and not all of them were life-threatening or world-ending or rights-violating. (Unless monkeys have standing…

The poet and sociologist’s gleefully unorthodox work on blackness.

"I’m a mom of a little girl that I would like to see live. Please understand, I’m not fighting about bathrooms. I’m fighting about her life."

When a creature mysteriously turns up dead in Alaska—be it a sea otter, polar bear, or humpback whale—veterinary pathologist Kathy Burek gets the call. Her necropsies reveal cause of death and causes for concern as climate change frees up new pathogens and other dangers in a vast, thawing north.

You can work full time but not have the money to fix your teeth – visible reminders of the divide between rich and poor.

It’s almost hard to believe that the life and death battle over health care dominated the first half of this year, as stories about Medicare, Medicaid, pre-existing conditions, and outrageously expensive medications helped defeat the bill in Congress.

He wanted to be brave like his dad, until the gun violence circling his life found a close target.