Your weekend long reads 🗞️

Happy Labor Day weekend, friends of The Short List! It's John, and I hope you are enjoying some well-earned rest and relaxation. Why not take a minute right now and catch up with some of the best reads of the week from the Paste BN Network? Let's dive right in:

►20 years ago, the unimaginable: Next Saturday is the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. With the passage of time, the sense among Americans that the attacks permanently changed life in the United States has grown, not faded, a Paste BN/Suffolk University poll found. We'll have more coverage leading up to Saturday's anniversary. Here, we've compiled facts and figures related to the attacks and aftermath of Sept. 11.

►Call them 'secret vaxxers': A significant number of Americans are getting COVID-19 vaccinations but not telling their anti-vaxxer friends, family or colleagues, fearing they would be ostracized. About 1 in 6 vaccinated Americans say they're keeping it a secret from at least some people, while more than 1 in 17 aren't telling anyone, according to a Harris Poll survey conducted exclusively for Paste BN.

►'Soul of the Underground Railroad': When Frederick Douglass arrived in New York as a frightened, penniless fugitive from Baltimore, it was David Ruggles, a free Black man, who helped him and became his mentor. An antislavery activist, businessman and pioneering investigative journalist, Ruggles helped as many as 600 enslaved people escape to freedom. The latest in Paste BN's "Never Been Told" series looks at this extraordinary figure whose legacy remains obscure despite incredible accomplishments.

►Munch, munch munch: Finally, I hope you won't be spending your weekend repairing your lawn. Across a wide swath of the country, armyworms are devouring healthy lawns with terrifying speed. "When they hatch, the pests can turn a lush green lawn into a brown, barren wasteland seemingly overnight," writes Paste BN's Christine Fernando. 

There are more long reads below. Happy Labor Day!