Great Reads

For reasons researchers are still struggling to understand, rates of breast cancer in women 20 to 49 years old have increased over the last 20 years. These troubling increases have shifted the medical community’s approach to the disease. Catching breast cancer early can make all the difference: In localized cases where the cancer has not spread beyond the breast (also known as stage 1), the five-year survival rate for most breast cancers is 99 percent. But as researchers learn more about who gets breast cancer, when they get it, and why, it’s becoming clear that a one-size-fits-all approach to screening won’t be enough. It will take more than a general recommendation for regular mammograms to drive down breast cancer rates: We’ll need methods that help women understand their individual risk, access the preventive measures they need, and get the healthcare they deserve—regardless of how old they are, where they get their care, or the color of their skin.

What is a hall of fame? Is it the building that contains artifacts, plaques, and statues honoring famous people, or is it the people themselves? Is it a physical place, or a transcendent honor? During its wobbly lifespan from 1996 to 2011, the Georgia Music Hall of Fame was all those things, until it wasn’t anything.

Former Braves coaches Ron Washington and Eric Young Sr. mentored Acuña to an MVP season in 2023. Can the young outfielder thrive without them?

Nettie Washington Douglass, descendant of three legendary Black Americans, was born under the heavy mantle of history. Through the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives, her family is now linking their ancestors’ stories to the most pressing issues of today.

Agriculture is the state’s largest industry, contributing more than 350,000 jobs and more than $74 billion to Georgia’s economy. With high risks and, often, thin profit margins for family-owned farms, social isolation, the vagaries of weather, and the burden of a multigenerational family legacy, the work can wreak havoc on mental health.

Lashawn Thompson was the seventh person to die in custody of Fulton County last year, but his was the death that finally caught the world’s attention. It took a scene so squalid that the deputy who discovered it fled to retch: Thompson was found in a filthy cell on the medical wing of the Rice Street jail, covered in lice and his own waste, his head in a toilet. Just days before, the same deputy had voiced concerns over Thompson’s living conditions.

The 31-year-old is already a successful rapper, an activist, a PhD, and a former county commissioner in Athens. Now they’ve become an organizer for an ambitious new labor union—and become an Atlantan.

An Alabama company is trying to build a mineral mine just outside one of Georgia’s most majestic natural spaces, the Okefenokee Swamp. But critics worry: How close is too close?

Proctor, Tanyard, Clear, and Intrenchment creeks all begin downtown and flow out from the city like spokes—west, north, east, and south. The creeks predate the railroads and highways that have nearly buried them, but their exact sources remain a mystery.

A member of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya community, Abu Talib endured a harrowing journey at sea to start a new life in Clarkston. But conditions continue to deteriorate for the family he left behind.