Barry Yeoman

#intropost Hi Bluesky. I'm a freelance journalist who tries to put human faces on complex issues. I also teach at Duke and Wake Forest. I'll be posting my favorite longform narrative in all media, plus my own work and my students' too. Here's me as a baby journalist in 1990. Photo: Sadie Bridger.

#4 www.nytimes.com/shared/v1/cu...

Dollar General has fired back and we have updated the article: "We have engaged cooperatively with the Commission, producing more than 200,000 documents and over 350 gigabytes of data and making several Company representatives available to provide sworn testimony on relatively short notice."

Today, the Federal Trade Commission and 20 states sued Dollar General for chronically charging customers more than the shelf prices for food and other necessities. This was the subject of our December 2025 investigation in @theguardian.com, and the lawsuit quoted directly from our article.

DURHAM PALS: On Nov. 11, poet Moudi Sbeity, who grew up in Lebanon and was evacuated to the U.S. during the 2006 war, will read from his poems and memoir. During the darkest moments of 2025-26, his poetry has given me a tether of hope to hang onto. 7 p.m., Durham Friends Meeting, 404 Alexander Ave.

. @isabelwilkerson.bsky.social on covering the 1993 Mississippi River floods: "What I think we are always actually writing about is the ancient story of humans battling, and somehow surviving, the odds against them." @nytimes.com

The @nytimes.com's @michaelkruse.bsky.social is a stellar, humane political reporter, as his article on Michigan's U.S. Senate race once again shows. No paywall.

A nuanced, courageous profile of Rev. Greg Drumwright, a North Carolina political candidate who came to prominence when law enforcement pepper-sprayed a march he led to the polls. Why is he heroic to some and a "charlatan" to others? @bysayakamatsuoka.bsky.social @theassemblync.bsky.social #ncpol

Since we investigated dollar stores for overcharging customers, politicians from both parties have taken interest and action. Dollar General has now agreed to a $1.9 million deal to settle allegations that it “persistently” overcharged New York customers. @michaelwhudson.bsky.social @theguardian.com

Today is International #Stuttering Awareness Day, and I am proud to be friends with four of the people featured in this three-minute video produced by our Canadian friends at SPACE. The take-home message about how to treat people who #stutter: You just have to listen.

After @theguardian.com published our investigation of 7-Eleven and Circle K, which systematically overcharge customers, my colleague @sophiemsullivan.bsky.social produced this video. It encapsulates our findings in 90 lively seconds. Check it out. @jocelynzuck.bsky.social @byardduncan.bsky.social

. @theguardian.com has published a nine-month investigation of a Louisiana's "justice of the peace courts," whose judges have a financial incentive to order tenants' evictions, with or without adequate evidence. @oliverlaughland.bsky.social @wcraft.bsky.social @annie-flanagan.bsky.social

"I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been attacked already... A lot of the time I’m wearing a press vest or I’m shouting that I am a journalist, and they just don’t give a shit. They don’t even blink. It doesn’t faze them. They still come after me just like they would anyone else."

NEW: ICE is trying to deport a mother of 4 while her husband is at Fort Benning in Army basic training. When she went to pick up the family's military IDs, Navy personnel turned her over to ICE. She's been in the US since age six. With @nancyayoussef.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

In time for Indigenous Peoples' Day, Netflix has started streaming Free Leonard Peltier, a documentary by Jesse Short Bull and David France. It is powerful, sensitive, and (sadly) still timely. Please take time to watch it.

"To redesign living organisms to make them better suited, or more useful, to the altered world we have created." Great work by @barryyeoman.com. www.nwf.org/Home/Magazin...

MY LATEST: Should we rewrite the genetic codes of endangered animals and plants in order to save them? To make one species more hardy, should we borrow from the DNA from another? For National Wildlife magazine, I explored the controversy over synthetic biology and conservation.

Cop is subject of community complaints (including for punching a driver in the face during a traffic stop). Local newsroom files a public records request about him. Eugene, Ore says sure thing, that’ll cost $2.5 million and take at least 44,000 hours to complete. My latest for @theintercept.com:

As part of a three-state experiment, journalists at @theassemblync.bsky.social and @propublica.org tested whether they could get a North Carolina state license to open a private school inside Ponysaurus Brewing. #ncpol @carlibrosseau.bsky.social @jenniferberryhawes.bsky.social

Youth baseball is becoming a sport for rich kids, writes Harriet Ryan for @wsj.com. Many adults remember Little League and rec programs, dad coaches and the snack shack. But it's now an intense and costly year-round endeavor dominated by for-profit enterprises. Spending $10,000 a year is common.

MAGA activists now consider Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders too woke, writes @theatlantic.com's @dgraham.bsky.social. "They’re upset because the face of loafing in Sanders’s [Medicaid work requirement] ad is a cheese-ball-snarfing couch potato named Brad who is a young white man."

Cancer patients are being persuaded to spend tens of thousands on unproven treatments. Trisha Thadani's father was one of them and—dozens of interviews later—she wrote about him for @nytimes.com.

I've been waiting to read this: journalist Evan Gershkovich's account of his 491 days in a Russian prison. An excerpt from his new memoir, "This Cursed Beautiful Land," published by @thetimes.com. Hat tip: @thesundaylongread.bsky.social.

Our @theguardian.com investigation into overcharging by 7-Eleven and Circle K caught the attention of some members of Congress. @michaelwhudson.bsky.social @jocelynzuck.bsky.social @byardduncan.bsky.social @sophiemsullivan.bsky.social

My former student Andrew Long writes about the social-media conspiracies that followed Hurricane Helene, and the officials who say they’re better prepared to address disinformation two years later. @theassemblync.bsky.social #ncpol

The world moved on after Kilmar Abrego Garcia's return to the United States. But other deportees without criminial records are disappearing into El Salvador's prisons. Brave on-the-ground reporting by Kevin Sieff for @theatlantic.com. No paywall.

The Little River north of Durham NC was the scene of a 1981 murder that helped spark the state's LGBTQ+ movement. The details have always been fuzzy. Now, 45 years later, Andrew Nurkin has told the story of Sonny Antonevitch's killing and the movement it launched. @theassemblync.bsky.social #ncpol

Excited to introduce North Star Way, a podcast series launching Oct. 27. We interviewed Minnesotans about the creative and courageous ways they showed up for their neighbors during the largest federal immigration operation in U.S. history. A collaboration with John Noltner and A Peace of My Mind.

Our Guardian story about how 7-Eleven and Circle K, the US's top convenience store chains, habitually overcharge customers appears to have hit a nerve. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i... @jocelynzuck.bsky.social @byardduncan.bsky.social @sophiemsullivan.bsky.social @michaelwhudson.bsky.social

A Stanford law professor reacts to our investigation.

NEW for @theguardian.com: U.S. Convenience store giants have been quietly overcharging consumers for years. It's salt in the wound for ppl struggling with out-of-control living costs. W/ @barryyeoman.com, @sophiemsullivan.bsky.social and @jocelynzuck.bsky.social. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Was happy to add "7-Eleven secret shopper" to my resume this summer and help report this excellent investigation into serial overcharging by America's convenience stores, alongside @jocelynzuck.bsky.social, @barryyeoman.com and @byardduncan.bsky.social. Thanks to our editor Mike Hudson! Read below.

MY LATEST: Today @theguardian.com published our investigation of 7-Eleven and Circle K. Both chains routinely overcharge customers for food, toiletries, tobacco, and medicine, and yet elude government scrutiny. With @jocelynzuck.bsky.social, @byardduncan.bsky.social, @sophiemsullivan.bsky.social

One of my investigative stories is about to drop, which means I'll be sending out my Unabridged newsletter soon—maybe tomorrow. If you don't subscribe (it's free), this would be a good time.

Durham NC holds itself up as a pro-immigrant jurisdiction. But its magistrates and judges repeatedly refer people facing low-level criminal charges to ICE when they're not required to—even for offenses as minor as a single trespassing charge. @twitterlessabe.bsky.social @indyweek.bsky.social #ncpol

For six decades, in four languages, Taleen Mardirossian’s grandmother kept a secret. Who was she hiding, and why? In this new, haunting SLR original, Taleen tells an intergenerational story of love, language, and loss. sundaylongread.com/2026/09/12/t...

"[Sloan] Rachmuth’s lawsuit raises crucial questions that courts are grappling with across the country: What’s the line between an internet asshole and a criminal? And will attempts to regulate decency inevitably stifle dissent?" @jeffreybillman.bsky.social @theassemblync.bsky.social #ncpol

This column is worth your time.

West Point’s Cadet Hostess Office was founded in 1931 as a matchmaking service for aspiring young officers. It still exists, writes Jasper Craven. One recent document stresses the importance of “opening the door for ladies,” but only in a literal sense. @playboy.com HT @profligategrace.bsky.social

Kevin Sieff reports from Tapachula, at the southern tip of Mexico, where the Trump administration has been dumping immigrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Haiti. Many of them elderly, some stripped of their green card after spending most of their life in the United States. @theatlantic.com

Hanif Abdurraqib writes about the group chats—with writers and fellow former teen punks—that bring him closer to the joys of everyday life. www.newyorker.com/culture/essa...

Democratic Senate candidate @roycoopernc.bsky.social won praise in 2007, when he was North Carolina's attorney general, for declaring three Duke lacrosse players innocent of rape. Critics wish he’d done more for other defendants. @jimmorrill.bsky.social @theassemblync.bsky.social #ncpol

. @tommytomlinson.bsky.social on Dolly Parton: "She looked and sounded only like herself, and yet so many of us can see and hear ourselves in her—well, maybe not our current selves, but the version we hope to be. Those rhinestones were mirrors."

When Luis Manuel Aviles was arrested by immigration authorities, his son was entering his ninth month on the USS Abraham Lincoln with the Navy, a vessel that set a US military record for uninterrupted time at sea, stirring concerns about supply shortages and deteriorating mental health. @apnews.com

Hannah Goldfield reports on Hooters’s rebrand as a family-friendly restaurant—and brings her own family to eat there: “ ‘I love Hooters!’ my seven-year-old son declared. Who was I to argue with him?” www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

I just donated and hope you will too. David France's documentary films, including "How To Survive A Plague" and "Welcome To Chechnya," have been gripping and important chronicles about how people under attack fight for survival.

Moments after she got off a flight in Burbank, California, a young man in a brown hooded sweatshirt stopped Galina Bobreneva. “Congratulations, you’ve been chosen for secondary screening,” the federal agent told her before handcuffing her and leading her to an unmarked vehicle. By Miriam Jordan.

Courageous on-the-ground reporting from Sinloa, Mexico, where the drug cartels are gunning down influencers. By Kevin Sieff for @theatlantic.com.

A source of mine in ICE detention camps got deported to one of the most dangerous cities in Latin America. I followed him there to tell his story. @notus.com: www.notus.org/national/dhs...

"I believe that when we look for division, we're going to find it," John Noltner, founder of the storytelling project A Peace of My Mind, says in this new TEDx Talk from Belfast, Northern Ireland. "And when we look for connection, we're going to find that, too."

Nonprofit @sahanjournal.bsky.social does stellar reporting on immigrants and people of color in Minnesota. Its staff reflects the diversity of the communities they cover. I particularly recommend Katelyn Vue's unfolding series on a Hmong family left behind when the father was deported to Laos.