Features
Book Bans Have Reached Greater Pittsburgh’s Boardrooms and Ballots
Clashes around censorship have pitted parents against educators, and against each other, while outside funding raises the stakes.
The Queer Witches of Appalachia
"We have not given up our traditions and our culture just because we are witches or LGBTQ! We are proud Appalachians; we are proud witches."
The Witches of Columbus
Columbus, Ohio, and its surrounding area is home to a wealth of these businesses and organizations, from Druidry stores to classic metaphysical shops. In Columbus and Ohio at large, the magic is strong.
Ring Lardner’s Mysteries of the Central League
My point is that Ring Lardner’s stories helped shaped our nation’s sense of itself and its pastime, but these stories wouldn’t have existed without his experience in the Central League. That raucous baseball conglomerate of Midwest toughs and shady business dealings is down there in our cultural DNA.
Cleveland’s Museum of Natural History is Evolving
“It’s continuously evolving. If you don’t change, you’ll become extinct like a dinosaur.”
The Year Ceramics Took Cincinnati
Cincinnati is one of the best places in America to be an artist now because of a combination of low cost of living and a vibrant arts community.
PA Fails to Buffer Homes from Fracking
A Pennsylvania bill that would limit fracking near homes and schools was shelved this summer right before a scheduled committee vote. In a small town in shale country, accounts of misery and discord show the stakes.
Fighting to Get Home
Frank Green ran away from Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1898, headed to the Oneida homeland in Wisconsin. In 2022 he finally arrived.
Making it Harder to Get Health Care in WV Prisons
In a last-minute special session, the GOP-led legislature rushed through a law denying care that corrections officials don’t deem “medically necessary.”
St. Louis Brick by Brick
To understand the history of St. Louis’s bricks is to unearth systems of power, economy, dispossession, decline, and manifest destiny; the storybook decorative brickwork we see today becomes a tale as complex—and as sinister—as American history itself.
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