9 Feature Stories You Can't Miss This Week: Exonerees, Ex-Beasties, And Excavators

This week for BuzzFeed News, Albert Samaha explores how, for those exonerated from prison, living free doesn't necessarily mean living easy. Read that and these other great stories from BuzzFeed News and around the web.

1. Exonerated and Out of Prison — and That’s When the Trouble Starts — BuzzFeed News

Georgia Innocence Project

Scores of former convicts are exonerated every year, and the number is growing. But for Clarence Harrison and many others, walking out of the pen with a clear name and cash for all the years lost doesn’t mean living happily ever after. Read it at BuzzFeed News.

2. The Children of ISIS — Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Janet Reitman chronicles the story of three Chicago teens who, after attempting to flee the country and join ISIS, are now facing potential charges of terrorism. As many young, Western Muslims struggle to maintain their identities in societies that stigmatize them, online networks have become fertile ground for ISIS to find it's most impressionable — and impassioned — recruits. Read it at Rolling Stone.

3. The Incredible True Story Behind the Toronto Mystery Tunnel — Maclean's

Della Rollins for Maclean's

Elton McDonald, a talented 22-year-old construction worker, spent months digging a sophisticated tunnel in his hometown Toronto for simple pleasures like watching movies or listening to movies. This heartwarming profile of McDonald, written by Nicholas Köhler, illuminates the fundamental but complex pursuit of carving out a space of one's own, no matter how small or how visible. Read it at Maclean's.

4. The Ad-Rock Retirement Plan — GQ

Photograph by Jeffrey Milstein

Adam Horowitz was only 16 when he joined the Beastie Boys and catapulted himself into rap/rock stardom. Now that he's 48 and his life with the band is over, Zach Baron asks: What's next for Ad-Rock? Read it at GQ.

5. The Radical Humaneness of Norway’s Halden Prison — The New York Times Magazine

Photograph by Knut Egil Wang for The New York Times

Jessica Benko gets an inside look at Norway's revolutionary Halden prison, often called the "most humane" in the world, where the focus is on getting inmates out, rather than keeping them in. "[Its] qualities are so out of sync with the forms of imprisonment found in the United States that you could be forgiven for doubting whether Halden is a prison at all." Read it at The New York Times Magazine.

6. Two Years After His Husband’s Death, Jim Obergefell is Still Fighting for the Right to be Married — BuzzFeed News

Ty Wright for BuzzFeed News

After two decades together, Jim Obergefell and John Arthur married in 2013, as Arthur was dying from ALS. Chris Geidner reports from their home state, Ohio, which doesn’t recognize their marriage. Next month, the Supreme Court will decide if it must. Read it at BuzzFeed News.

7. Fixed Menu — Lucky Peach

Photograph by Armando Sanchez for Lucky Peach

Kevin Pang offers a thought-provoking foray into the lives of prisoners and how they are shaped by what they can — and can't — eat. "Should criminals be deprived of any pleasure from food?" Read it at Lucky Peach.

8. Nobody, Especially the Government, Knows How Many Mass Graves Have Been Found in Mexico — BuzzFeed News

Bernadino Hernandez / AP

Hundreds of mass graves have been discovered across Mexico, but the government isn’t keeping tabs. Karla Zabludovsky asks: How many clandestinely buried bodies are rotting under the country’s surface? Read it at BuzzFeed News.

9. The Girls on Shit Duty — Hazlitt

Vicki Nerino for Hazlitt

Anna Maxymiw reflects on her experience cleaning public toilets at a Canadian fishing lodge in this hilarious and, at times, squirm-inducing essay. "I never thought I’d work a job that was dictated by human shit. But things change." Read it at Hazlitt.

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