alex sammon
@alexsammon.bsky.social
📤 3227
📥 128
📝 85
features writer @ slate
[email protected]
reposted by
alex sammon
Justin
2 days ago
This article is exhaustive and fascinating. It ties together the FL citrus biz and its many challenges with regional history and a healthy splash of anecdotal narrative. Stories like this are why writers want to be writers.
add a skeleton here at some point
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alex sammon
Joel Pinckney
2 days ago
Also, it should be said:
@alexsammon.bsky.social
is on an incredible heater of late.
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alex sammon
Joel Pinckney
2 days ago
Blown away by this (devastating) piece. Come for a careful investigation on the collapse of the Florida orange, stay for details like a data center being built on the site of old groves "on the corner of Orange Avenue and Minute Maid Road."
add a skeleton here at some point
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alex sammon
The Media and Democracy Project
2 days ago
A microcosm of America in 2026: “Who killed the Florida orange?” Masterful journalism & a must read by
@alexsammon.bsky.social
“…private equity, Wall Street, the Great Recession, suburban sprawl, climate change, an addiction to Monsanto's glyphosate. All swallowed the mighty Florida Orange alive.”
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For Earth Day: The might Florida Orange industry has collapsed 95 percent in 20 years. 100 percent of the trees are infected with a disease deemed incurable. Was it Chinese pestilence that killed the FL orange? Or real estate, wall street, globalization, and pesticides...
slate.com/business/202...
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It Was on Your Table Every Morning Growing Up. It’s Dying Before Our Eyes. No One Wants to Face It.
The powerhouse of American citrus is suffering a brutal decline. Everyone has a theory about why.
https://slate.com/business/2026/04/florida-state-orange-food-houses-real-estate.html
2 days ago
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alex sammon
ryan cooper
2 days ago
damn
slate.com/business/202...
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It Was on Your Table Every Morning Growing Up. It’s Dying Before Our Eyes. No One Wants to Face It.
The powerhouse of American citrus is suffering a brutal decline. Everyone has a theory about why.
https://slate.com/business/2026/04/florida-state-orange-food-houses-real-estate.html
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The Florida orange crop has collapsed 95 percent in 20 years, headed for a century-low 12 million boxes. 100 percent of the trees are infected with a disease transmitted by an invasive Chinese bug, and deemed "incurable." Who killed the Florida Orange?
slate.com/business/202...
loading . . .
It Was on Your Table Every Morning Growing Up. It’s Dying Before Our Eyes. No One Wants to Face It.
The powerhouse of American citrus is suffering a brutal decline. Everyone has a theory about why.
https://slate.com/business/2026/04/florida-state-orange-food-houses-real-estate.html?tpcc=giftedarticle
4 days ago
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alex sammon
Travis Johnson
25 days ago
This is amazing.
add a skeleton here at some point
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alex sammon
🇨🇦 Christine 🇨🇦
25 days ago
This is some read.
add a skeleton here at some point
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alex sammon
tim dewey
25 days ago
The article keeps hinting at a big secret from Gil’s past that points to a sinister motivation, but he just seems like a genuinely idealistic guy, who’s only (admittedly major) mistake was thinking he could do this all by himself.
add a skeleton here at some point
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alex sammon
Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
25 days ago
This story is a wild ride and I recommend taking it. For what it’s worth, the reaction that tells me the most about whose side I’m on is Janet’s (late in the piece, when it’s all over). But there’s a lot to experience here that doesn’t boil down to whose side you pick, whoever it is.
add a skeleton here at some point
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alex sammon
Longreads
29 days ago
"For a long time, the housed neighbors had felt like the city had abandoned homeless people. Now they felt like the city was abandoning them."
@alexsammon.bsky.social
for
@slate.com
#longreads
slate.com/business/202...
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When the New Neighbor Arrived, They Were Excited. It Turned Into a Seven-Year Nightmare That Had Liberals Losing Their Minds.
The seven-year war between the bookstore owner and the good liberals who went rogue.
https://slate.com/business/2026/03/homes-new-mexico-book-store-homeless-trump.html?src=longreads
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alex sammon
Joel Pinckney
30 days ago
My goodness, this piece is messy, complex, bleak, deeply human. Absolutely Incredible piece of journalism from
@alexsammon.bsky.social
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When the New Neighbor Arrived, They Were Excited. It Turned Into a Seven-Year Nightmare That Had Liberals Losing Their Minds.
The seven-year war between the bookstore owner and the good liberals who went rogue.
https://slate.com/business/2026/03/homes-new-mexico-book-store-homeless-trump.html?tpcc=giftedarticle
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In 2022, Gil Kerley opened a used bookstore in Albuquerque. His neighbors were elated—gentrification! Higher property values! Then they watched in dismay as he moved a steadily growing homeless camp into the parking lot. Was it all a revenge plot?
slate.com/business/202...
loading . . .
When the New Neighbor Arrived, They Were Excited. It Turned Into a Seven-Year Nightmare That Had Liberals Losing Their Minds.
The seven-year war between the bookstore owner and the good liberals who went rogue.
https://slate.com/business/2026/03/homes-new-mexico-book-store-homeless-trump.html?tpcc=giftedarticle
about 1 month ago
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alex sammon
Henry Grabar
3 months ago
[email protected]
profiled a day laborer at a Los Angeles Home Depot. a tragic story, expertly told:
slate.com/business/202...
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reposted by
alex sammon
AMPTsuper
3 months ago
slate.com/business/202...
@slate.com
Story by
@alexsammon.bsky.social
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I Spent 12 Hours in the Parking Lot Where Donald Trump’s Darkest Work Is Unfolding. They’re Hoping You Don’t Notice.
How a quintessentially American setting became an epicenter of cruelty.
https://slate.com/business/2026/01/donald-trump-immigration-ice-agent-arrests-home-depot.html
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alex sammon
Graham W. Jenkins
6 months ago
Great
@alexsammon.bsky.social
article, and also, I wasn't imagining it after all
slate.com/business/202...
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alex sammon
Ben Mathis-Lilley
7 months ago
(Story by the great
@alexsammon.bsky.social
)
slate.com/life/2025/09...
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Beer Is Officially on the Decline in America. No One Saw the Real Culprit Coming.
The war on suds has multiple fronts—but they all come from the same place.
https://slate.com/life/2025/09/beer-sales-decline-bud-light-donald-trump-news.html
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alex sammon
Steve Harbick
7 months ago
I'd be curious how US trends compare to global/ROW trends. Is this really an American only phenomena?
@alexsammon.bsky.social
@slate.com
add a skeleton here at some point
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participated in my first People Magazine exclusive, in which I am "man."
people.com/what-happene...
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Man Got an Unexpected Text Offering a Dream Job, So He Said Yes — and Discovered a Strange Scam Ring
In 2024, Americans reported $470 million in losses to text scams, more than fivefold the amount reported in 2020, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The digital landscape continues to evolve, ...
https://people.com/what-happened-when-journalist-responded-to-scam-text-about-dream-job-11786404
8 months ago
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alex sammon
Tiffani
8 months ago
Today in “One-liners That Absolutely Destroyed Me”: “Someone should invent a currency that’s just the amount that it is.” -
@alexsammon.bsky.social
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reposted by
alex sammon
Mark Joseph Stern
9 months ago
This shameful episode👇 set the stage for what Trump is doing today. Cynical Democrats and pundits claimed that D.C. couldn't be trusted to write our own criminal laws, legitimizing Republicans' insistence that we don't deserve home rule. A straight line from there to here.
slate.com/news-and-pol...
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alex sammon
Longreads
9 months ago
Congratulations to
@alexsammon.bsky.social
! He won this week's audience award for "My Scammer" at
@slate.com
slate.com/technology/2...
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I Responded to One of the Spam Texts From a “Recruiter”—Then Took the Job. It Got Weirder Than I Could Have Imagined.
The story of “Cathy,” my scammer.
https://slate.com/technology/2025/08/indeed-job-recruiter-text-message-scam.html?src=longreads
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alex sammon
Tim Newman
9 months ago
widespread adoption of crypto + proliferation of AI + softening of the labor market + enforcement “replaced by crypto industry toadies” = “It is a great time to be a scammer.”
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alex sammon
Is Everyone Else Tired?
9 months ago
This is incredible.
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alex sammon
trc 🇨🇦 🏴 🏴 🇦🇲
9 months ago
'This whole march of human cultural production—incalculable progress—and the one constant that has survived and adapted and thrived? The scam. ... In the end, I arrived at a simple truth. Over the course of two months, “Cathy” had run me for $96.'
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reposted by
alex sammon
Eileen Clancy 🧿
9 months ago
Crypto is the scam enabler. It's where crooks hide money. It also does important cultural work by lubricating transactions with a magical get-rich-quick aura. It says you don't fully understand what's happening with your "earnings" because the rules are different in the cryptosphere. Duh.
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alex sammon
Greg Linden
9 months ago
Scam job offers requiring you to initially pay fees in crypto, "pay" you in crypto that you can't withdraw or access so you get nothing in the end, and use your labor to generate bogus click traffic and "clicks ... captured to beat captchas or overcome security measures that target bots."
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alex sammon
Clive Thompson
9 months ago
You know those spam text messages you get, saying it's a recruiter with a job for you? what ... how does the scam work?
@alexsammon.bsky.social
took one of the jobs, and the story is *fascinating* Go check it out:
slate.com/technology/2...
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I Responded to One of the Spam Texts From a “Recruiter”—Then Took the Job. It Got Weirder Than I Could Have Imagined.
The story of “Cathy,” my scammer.
https://slate.com/technology/2025/08/indeed-job-recruiter-text-message-scam.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
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i got one of those low effort spam texts from "Indeed," offering a low effort, well-paid remote job. I spent the last two months working in a Filipino clickfarm, for a very disappointed woman named Cathy.
slate.com/technology/2...
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I Responded to One of the Spam Texts From a “Recruiter”—Then Took the Job. It Got Weirder Than I Could Have Imagined.
The story of “Cathy,” my scammer.
https://slate.com/technology/2025/08/indeed-job-recruiter-text-message-scam.html
9 months ago
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In just over two years, 155,000 migrants passed through the aging Roosevelt Hotel. Eric Adams conspired to kick them out; Dr. Phil choreographed an aborted ICE raid of the facility, conservative media claimed it was Tren de Aragua HQ.
9 months ago
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alex sammon
Ken McLeod
10 months ago
"The front end, which was also a trunk, came up right to my rib cage, a contact point that would have chagrined any high school football coach as bad tackling form: too high."
add a skeleton here at some point
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reposted by
alex sammon
Carlton Reid
10 months ago
This by
@alexsammon.bsky.social
is a very good and funny piece on that tank:
slate.com/business/202...
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It’s the Car That Explains Everything About America Right Now. Elon Musk Only Wishes He Made It.
In Florida, on the country’s most dangerous roads, I had a 9,500-pound revelation.
https://slate.com/business/2025/06/cars-trucks-hummer-elon-musk-tesla-donald-trump.html
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alex sammon
Chelsea D Chamberlain
10 months ago
great piece
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I wrote about the return of the war on terror, and its favorite mascot, recently rebooted just in time for us to lose another great conflict, our war with climate change.
slate.com/business/202...
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It’s the Car That Explains Everything About America Right Now. Elon Musk Only Wishes He Made It.
In Florida, on the country’s most dangerous roads, I had a 9,500-pound revelation.
https://slate.com/business/2025/06/cars-trucks-hummer-elon-musk-tesla-donald-trump.html
10 months ago
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Disappearance has become a feature of the Trump’s ICE raids, a process that often finds people in a prison network in central Louisiana. I got a behind-the-curtain look at the operations of American Siberia—the newfangled ICE detention towns where people are sent to disappear. 1/
10 months ago
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Hey *YOU*, Bluesky user! Would it shock you to know that the big money, corporate-backed centrist organs have decided that YOU are the greatest threat to the Democratic Party, and the reason it loses elections? They convened a gathering to make sure of it.
slate.com/news-and-pol...
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I Went to the Biggest Party for the Most-Hated Democrats in America. One Moment Said It All.
There was one clear idea for how to beat Trump.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/06/donald-trump-democrats-slotkin-protests-aoc-torres.html
11 months ago
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alex sammon
Henry Grabar
12 months ago
Read
@alexsammon.bsky.social
on a visit to Mahmoud Khalil, America's most famous political prisoner
slate.com/news-and-pol...
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What Trump Is Doing in Louisiana Is Quiet but Devastating. One Afternoon Showed It All.
One hour inside the prison holding America's political prisoners.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/05/donald-trump-mahmoud-khalil-immigrants-deportation.html
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alex sammon
Mary Harris
12 months ago
My colleague
@alexsammon.bsky.social
from inside Louisiana's immigrant detention:
slate.com/news-and-pol...
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It’s Easy to Forget the Reality of What We’re Doing to People Like Mahmoud Khalil. One Hour in His Facility Shows That.
A heartbreaking afternoon in ICE custody in Louisiana.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/05/donald-trump-mahmoud-khalil-immigrants-deportation.html
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alex sammon
Katie Rayford
12 months ago
exclusive reporting by
@alexsammon.bsky.social
in
@slate.com
on what life is like for Mahmoud Khalil inside the remote ICE detention center he's being held, including the moment he saw his newborn son for the first time (via pictures that a friend snuck into the center)
slate.com/news-and-pol...
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Trump Is Sending People Like Mahmoud Khalil to Louisiana for a Reason. See It for Yourself.
A heartbreaking afternoon in ICE custody in Louisiana.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/05/donald-trump-mahmoud-khalil-immigrants-deportation.html
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reposted by
alex sammon
Lizzie O'Leary
12 months ago
How Mahmoud Khalil first saw photos of his son. by
@alexsammon.bsky.social
slate.com/news-and-pol...
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What Trump Is Doing in Louisiana Is Quiet but Devastating. One Afternoon Showed It All.
One hour inside the prison holding America's political prisoners.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/05/donald-trump-mahmoud-khalil-immigrants-deportation.html
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alex sammon
David Dayen
12 months ago
Terrific feature by my first hire at the Prospect way back when,
@alexsammon.bsky.social
, who went down to Jena, Louisiana, home of a notorious ICE detention center, to see Mahmoud Khalil get a first glimpse at pictures of his child.
slate.com/news-and-pol...
loading . . .
What Trump Is Doing in Louisiana Is Quiet but Devastating. One Afternoon Showed It All.
One hour inside the prison holding America's political prisoners.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/05/donald-trump-mahmoud-khalil-immigrants-deportation.html
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reposted by
alex sammon
Jeremy Stahl
12 months ago
Gut-wrenching reporting from
@alexsammon.bsky.social
inside the ICE facility where Mahmoud Khalil is locked up, on the day Khalil was first allowed a glimpse of a photo of his newborn child:
slate.com/news-and-pol...
loading . . .
What Trump Is Doing in Louisiana Is Quiet but Devastating. One Afternoon Showed It All.
One hour inside the prison holding America's political prisoners.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/05/donald-trump-mahmoud-khalil-immigrants-deportation.html
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alex sammon
Mark Joseph Stern
12 months ago
Heartbreaking piece by
@alexsammon.bsky.social
from inside the ICE facility where Mahmoud Khalil remains illegally imprisoned for his free speech—on the day when Khalil first saw a photo his newborn son.
slate.com/news-and-pol...
loading . . .
What Trump Is Doing in Louisiana Is Quiet but Devastating. One Afternoon Showed It All.
One hour inside the prison holding America's political prisoners.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/05/donald-trump-mahmoud-khalil-immigrants-deportation.html
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reposted by
alex sammon
nadira 🙃
12 months ago
Really grateful for (and devastated by)
@alexsammon.bsky.social
's latest: a report from the remote ICE facility in Louisiana where Mahmoud Khalil is being held (among many others), detailing the first moments Khalil was able to "see" his son.
slate.com/news-and-pol...
loading . . .
What Trump Is Doing in Louisiana Is Quiet but Devastating. One Afternoon Showed It All.
One hour inside the prison holding America's political prisoners.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/05/donald-trump-mahmoud-khalil-immigrants-deportation.html
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reposted by
alex sammon
Seth Maxon
12 months ago
Amazing reporting and a great, maddening story.
add a skeleton here at some point
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How Mahmoud Khalil—detained by ICE in "the black hole" in Louisiana alongside 1000 others, refused by ICE to be present for his wife giving birth—first saw photos of his newborn son.
slate.com/news-and-pol...
loading . . .
What Trump Is Doing in Louisiana Is Quiet but Devastating. One Afternoon Showed It All.
One hour inside the prison holding America's political prisoners.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/05/donald-trump-mahmoud-khalil-immigrants-deportation.html
12 months ago
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excited to announce that i am now a Features Writer for
@slate.com
:)
about 1 year ago
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alex sammon
David Moore
about 1 year ago
House Democrats voted 131-84 in a secret ballot vote to give the chair of the Oversight Committee to 74-year-old Gerry Connolly over AOC. Connolly has put out one tweet about the Jeffrey Goldberg / Atlantic bombshell today. He and his committee have not put out an IG post, reel, or YouTube video.
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