Accounting for Histories: 150 Years of Canadian Maple Washing

"Over the course of a four-day siege in January 2015, Boko Haram carted away the boys of Baga," writes Sarah Topol. "No one knows exactly how many were taken, but by the end...virtually an entire town’s worth of children vanished." In this feature for The New York Times, Topol tells the story of four boy soldiers and includes horrific details of life under the terrorist group that have never been reported before.

As Stephanie Nolen writes for The Globe and Mail, back when she was covering the African AIDS epidemic, Venezuela's AIDS program was held up as a model. But with the country's economic and political crisis, that program is in tatters. Nolen speaks to those affected and looks at the challenges around securing international funding in the face of government inaction. 

"There's no missing the signs that something unspeakable happened in Allende, a quiet ranching town just a 40-minute drive from Eagle Pass, Texas," writes Ginger Thompson. This joint investigation from ProPublica and National Geographic describes in heartbreaking detail how the mishandling of information by American DEA officials led to a horrendous assault by a cartel on a Mexican town. 

Donald Trump promised to "Make America Great Again," but according to FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver, he might instead be "Making Europe Liberal Again." Counter to the prevailing narrative of a swing towards right-wing parties, Silver compares politics in several European countries and finds it has become more difficult to make the case that a nationalist tide is on the rise.