A few of the recent pieces I recommend reading:

Larissa MacFarquhar in the New Yorker: When Should a Child Be Taken from His Parents?

Brian Rinker at STAT: 32 churches and no methadone clinic: struggling with addiction in an opioid ‘treatment desert’

Renee Bracey Sherman in the New York Times: The Right to (Black) Life

Brianna Ehley at Politico: ‘I just started flowing. It was the only thing that helped.’In tough neighborhoods, can high-school mental health counselors cut the school-to-prison pipeline?

Yamiche Alcindor in the New York Times: In Sweltering South, Climate Change Is Now a Workplace Hazard

Update, 8/16: I put this post together on Saturday morning. Since then, of course, the horrific events in Charlottesville have put racism and domestic terrorism into sharp focus. Here are some of the best related pieces I’ve read:

N. D. B. Connolly in the Washington Post: Charlottesville showed that liberalism can’t defeat white supremacy. Only direct action can.

Melissa Jeltsen at Huffington Post: Charlottesville Car Attack Suspect Accused Of Domestic Violence Multiple Times

Jamelle Bouie at Slate: The GOP Can’t Hide from Charlottesville

Laura Smith at The Cut: The Truth About Women and White Supremacy

Jennifer Adaeze Okwerekwu at STAT: I went to medical school in Charlottesville. I know white anger well (This one’s at the end of the list because it closes on a hopeful note.)