Our 9 Favorite Feature Stories This Week: Key & Peele, Failed Foster Care, And Methadone Stings
This week for BuzzFeed News, John Knefel explores how cops are harassing heroin addicts by staking out the clinics that are keeping them clean. Read that and these other great stories from BuzzFeed News and around the web.
1. The Common Cure For Heroin Addiction Is Also A Magnet For Police Harassment — BuzzFeed News
With heroin addiction skyrocketing, methadone remains the gold standard for narcotics dependence treatment. Yet cops nationwide target heavily regulated methadone clinics to turn vulnerable addicts into informants, with little public outcry, reaffirming the medicine’s enduring, deadly stigma. Read it at BuzzFeed News.
2. “It’s War”: Being a Cop in Post-Charlie Hebdo France — Matter
When gunmen massacred twelve people in an attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris last month, French authorities were forced into action like never before. Mac McClelland looks at the newly armed and embittered police force. Read it at Matter.
3. Fostering Profits — BuzzFeed News
Aram Roston and Jeremy Singer-Vine investigate National Mentor Holdings, the nation’s largest for-profit foster care company. Its failure to properly screen, train, and oversee foster parents has led to tragedy for the kids in their care. Read it at BuzzFeed News.
4. The White Devil Kingpin — Rolling Stone
David Kushner tells the unlikely story of how a white orphan from Boston’s notorious Dorchester neighborhood found a home in Chinatown as a crime lord. “You’re scared, but you’re not scared…because you belong to something.” Read it at Rolling Stone.
5. Brother from Another Mother — The New Yorker
Zadie Smith profiles comedy duo Key & Peele and gets a fascinating glimpse into their ever-changing, racebending brand of humor. “Very often, humans latch on to the first thing they can get hold of and go, ‘This is working. I’m gonna do this’…what Jordan and I have latched on to is: ‘All of this is working.’” Read it at The New Yorker.
6. Some Hollywood Extras Suffer, but Others Are Rolling in It — LA Weekly
A fun and, at times, unbelievable piece by Hillel Aron on how unionized Hollywood background actors are able to make six figures a year for days spent eating catered meals and sitting on sets. “It wasn’t that long ago where everybody made fun of extras…Now everyone wants to be one.” Read it at LA Weekly.
7. The 76ers’ Plan to Win (Yes, Really) — ESPN The Magazine
Pablo S. Torre examines how the NBA’s infamously failed team is — despite all appearances — strategizing for success. “They tell us every game, every day, ‘Trust the Process.‘“Read it at ESPN The Magazine.
8. Waitin’ on Sage — The California Sunday Magazine
Abe Streep explores the world of professional bull riding which, despite its drama and danger, is largely ignored outside of the South. Can a 20-year-old rodeo king be the sport’s ticket to mainstream appeal? Read it at The California Sunday Magazine.
9. King David — The Atlantic
Ta-Nehisi Coates pens a beautiful tribute to the late and legendary David Carr. “David Carr convinced me that, through the constant and forceful application of principle, a young hopper, a fuck-up, a knucklehead, could bring the heavens, the vast heavens, to their knees.” Read it at The Atlantic.
Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/anitabadejo/our-9-favorite-feature-stories-this-week-key-peele-failed-fo
