A businessman – and Gadhafi associate – who was convicted in a 2007 prostitution ring bust reveals all the dirty secrets of how models (and even some Hollywood actresses) swarm the hotels and yacht parties during the fest: says one escort, it’s “the biggest payday of the year.” By Dana Kennedy. (May 17, 2013)

Some workplaces have not only embraced the summer doldrums, they've turned those agonizingly slow Friday afternoons into a cheap perk dubbed the "summer Friday." A number of employers, acutely aware of the fact that workers are daydreaming of being anywhere but at the office, let them take the day off or leave early on Friday afternoons in an effort to boost morale and productivity.

For the first time ever, astronomers at The University of New Mexico say they’ve been able to observe and measure the orbital motion between two supermassive black holes hundreds of millions of light years from Earth – a discovery more than a decade in the making.

The pleasure of being necessary to my parents was profound. I was not like the children in folktales: burdensome mouths to feed. By Toni Morrison.

“An unprecedented opportunity in the history of working class literature.” By Megan Walsh. (May 1, 2017)

In this oral history, a former sheepherder describes the loneliness and medical hardship he experienced while tending sheep in California’s Central Valley. By Heraclio Astete, with journalist Gabriel Thompson.

President Trump ignited a national discussion of blue-collar jobs. Truck driving, once a road to the middle class, is now low-paying, grinding, unhealthy work. We talked with drivers about why they do it. By “Trip Gabriel.

On freelancing and paying taxes in Berlin. By Vanessa Ellingham.

A rural town in Spain gives us a glimpse into the challenges we will face in a workless future. By David Mcdermott Hughes.

The truth is I don’t want to be a full-time carer, any more than I wanted to be a full-time mother. And I don’t want to live with my ma any more than she wants to live with me. By Janice Turner.

Human capital theory was invented as an ideological weapon in the Cold War. Now it is helping to Uberise the world of work. By Peter Fleming.

Survey data show millions of workers are paid less than the minimum wage, at significant cost to taxpayers and state economies. By David Cooper and Teresa Kroeger.

Weekends are a lie created by capitalism. We made up the weekend the same way we made up the week. The earth actually does rotate around the sun once a year, taking about 365.25 days. The sun truly rises and sets over twenty-four hours. But the week is man-made, arbitrary, a substance not found in nature. That seven-day cycle in which we mark our meetings, mind birthdays, and overstuff our iCals—buffered on both ends by those promise-filled 48 hours of freedom—only holds us in place because we invented it.

No, they’re not in the Rust Belt. By Alana Semuels.

What are tech workers' heart's desires? Consider how many of them you could implement in your shop, and make the staff's dreams come true.

In the highlands of Mexico, farmers harvest ant larvae that will end up in some of the nation’s most exclusive restaurants. By Marcela Zendejas and Mauricio Palos.

It’s about the living wage in America. By Adrianne Jeffries.

His cap is bleached as white as the bones of a Saharan camel. Is the romance of the French Foreign Legion a cult of death? By Robert Twigger.

Wal-Mart is Everywhere--and that's profoundly depressing.

By Vicki Boykis’ mom.