Five Hostages
In The New Yorker, Lawrence Wright reports on the attempts made by the U.S. government and an independent team led by David Bradley to rescue five Americans held hostage by the Islamic State. Bradley, owner of the Atlantic Media Company, gathered the hostages’ families together to coordinate rescue efforts that went further than the State Department, restricted by government policies on hostage negotiation, could go. The families “hoped that by working together they might bring their children home.”