Senior Editor Ted Scheinman previously taught courses in satire, poetry, and journalism at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. Before that, he was an editor at the Washington City Paper. His reporting on prisons, politics, and pop culture has appeared in the New York Times, The Oxford American, Playboy, and Slate. He is also a contributing editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books. His first book, Camp Austen: My Life as an Accidental Jane Austen Superfan, appeared via Farrar, Straus & Giroux in March of 2018.
Tazewell Thompson's new play, Jubilee, tells the story of the black singers who braved mob violence to perform all over the world—and thereby save one of America's first black universities.
The director discusses his new film about wrongful conviction and the death penalty—and why audiences sometimes hold "issue" movies to a higher standard.
PS Picks is a selection of the best things that the magazine's staff and contributors are reading, watching, or otherwise paying attention to in the worlds of art, politics, and culture.
An interview with Jamie Margolin, founder of Zero Hour and the youngest official speaker at this week's climate summit in San Francisco.
Analyzing the tensions around this week's climate talks in San Francisco.
Pacific Standard spoke with Amazonian activists, grandmothers, and small children at Saturday's march in San Francisco.
Charges have been dropped against the remaining 38 protesters who were arrested during the J20 protests at President Donald Trump's inauguration.
In a 5-4 ruling, SCOTUS found that challengers in lower courts had failed to prove that the ban flouted immigration law or First Amendment protections of religion.
PS Picks is a selection of the best things that the magazine's staff and contributors are reading, watching, or otherwise paying attention to in the worlds of art, politics, and culture.
PS Picks is a selection of the best things that the magazine's staff and contributors are reading, watching, or otherwise paying attention to in the worlds of art, politics, and culture.
News and notes from Pacific Standard staff and contributors.
PS Picks is a selection of the best things that the magazine's staff and contributors are reading, watching, or otherwise paying attention to in the worlds of art, politics, and culture.
PS Picks is a selection of the best things that the magazine's staff and contributors are reading, watching, or otherwise paying attention to in the worlds of art, politics, and culture.
While diplomats travel to Germany, we're sending our reporter to the front lines.
Shakespeare used to be considered a defense against totalitarianism. How we flattered ourselves.
Faced with damning testimony against their president, GOP senators resorted to hair-splitting.
Welcome to an increasingly isolated America.
The veteran civil-society advocate came of political age under the Marcos régime in the Philippines. Today she’s one of the busiest organizers in the world.
Climate observers in Marrakech had a bad night and a worse morning.
As the Moroccan presidency opens this year’s climate talks, leaders urge prompt action while civil society expresses concern about financial mechanisms, and at least one reporter wonders, “why are we here?”
At a press conference on the eve of COP22, the two leaders of this year’s talks stressed inclusivity and, yes, “action.”
They’re already stigmatized out of all proportion to their health effects — and yes, they can help you quit smoking.
The 250-year precedent for deploying the United States military to police the nation's citizenry.
The International Renewable Energy Agency's sixth annual meeting this weekend in Abu Dhabi laid out an ambitious path for doubling renewables as a way to meet mitigation goals—and to create millions of new jobs.
An interview with my mother about the meanest thing I've ever said to her.
Yesterday, the ministers pulled an all-nighter with Laurent Fabius to produce the penultimate draft of a climate agreement. Resigned to a toothless deal, activists plan their next steps.
They number over 100 million. There's a new one every second. And—despite whatever you've heard—almost none of them are relocating to the West.
Major powers make a major concession on their stated climate targets. Given the money and the science, that concession remains largely rhetorical.
The climate summit emerges from a rocky week with a new text. Negotiations have been transparent and equitable—or maybe opaque and grossly unbalanced. Welcome to the COP-Spin Zone.
Last night's negotiations saw a lot of walkouts, with finance as the wedge. Climate insurance could be a major boon for the global south—and an easier pill for the West to swallow.
The 2016 Global Climate Risk Index, released today at COP21, quantifies the toll of climate change in countries most vulnerable. Delegations from richer nations should start paying attention.
A new United Nations survey of South Pacific island nations highlights the necessity of easing mobility for climate refugees—and the importance of calling them refugees in the first place.
At COP21, the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative makes a passionate case for immediate action to preserve the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.
From New York to New Delhi, citizens and activists gathered in astonishing numbers at more than 2,000 events around the globe.
When the government said they couldn’t march, activists covered the Place de la République with shoes—and an estimated 10,000 people gathered to form a human chain.
At COP21, the UNFCCC will take the findings of the IPCC, assess the INDCs of 195 signatory countries, and help LDCs limit their GHGs. Here is what all of that means.
The Climate Policy Initiative’s new 2015 report offers a bit of hope, plus some helpful directives for future green investment.
A year-long special report that chronicles the cost of global warming in all hemispheres.
The World Bank is out with a grim new report—and an ambitious call-to-action for the developed world.
Compassion has often counted as a "maverick" quality in the Holy See. Now Republicans are calling it political.
Our week of talking about community, belief, enthusiasm, zeal, terror, and also basset hounds.