If you only have time for one long read this week, make it the excellent “Breathless and Burdened” series by Chris Hamby of the Center for Public Integrity. The series website explains, “This yearlong investigation examines how doctors and lawyers, working at the behest of the coal industry, have helped defeat the benefits claims of miners sick and dying of black lung, even as disease rates are on the rise and an increasing number of miners are turning to a system that was supposed to help alleviate their suffering.” This is investigative reporting at its finest!

Other recent pieces I’ve liked:

Tressie McMillan Cottam at tressiemc: The Logic of Stupid Poor People

Garance Franke-Ruta at The Atlantic: The New Problem With Obamacare Isn’t Socialism, It’s Creative Destruction (also, check out her take on the Healthcare.gov tech mess: Americans in Need will Save Obamacare from Itself)

Two pieces on New York City’s subways and other underground infrastructure, which are vulnerable to major storms and suffered when Sandy hit: Robert Sullivan in the New York Times, Could New York City Subways Survive Another Hurricane? and William Langewiesche in Vanity Fair, What Lies Beneath

Kate Sheppard at the Huffington Post: Chemical Safety Rules Requested After West, Texas Explosion Delayed By Shutdown