I have to get this out of the way:

Dang. These stories are still out there! Now, some stories you may have missed but shouldn’t:

• Real estate is more than Donald Trump and the mob. Whet Moser writing for Chicago magazine digs into the data on who’s creating demand for housing in my beloved Second City. It’s millennials — rich ones. Pair with Michael Andersen’s wonderful Medium post summarizing the work of a guy who collected rent data the hard way: going through microfilm archives for 30 years of pre-rent control classified ads. Both are warning shots for cities that want people to actually live in them.
• More extreme: this heartbreaking NPR photo essay on India’s profoundly polluted Yamuna River.
• Architecture comes in all shapes and sizes. You need to read Megan Garber for the Atlantic on the quest to design a comfortable high-heeled shoe.
• Blake Ross, the software engineer who created Firefox, wrote a remarkable essay last month on Facebook, about a condition he had no idea the rest of the world didn’t share. Ross has aphantasia — he has no mind’s eye. It’s a fascinating, funny and empathetic look at brains, culture and imagination.
• The ultimate under-the-radar story, from Slate’s wonderful Supreme Court reporter Dahlia Lithwick: why it’s virtually impossible to cover Merrick Garland.