The Week’s Best Longreads: The Daily Beast Picks for July 27, 2012

King KarlPaul M. Barrett, Bloomberg BusinessweekKarl Rove’s $1 billion plan to become the CEO of the Republican Party.

Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, WivesMimi Schwartz, Texas MonthlyIn 2011 the Texas slashed family planning funds, passed a new sonogram law, and waged an all-out war on Planned Parenthood that has dramatically shifted the state’s public health priorities.

We Are Alive David Remnick, The New YorkerBruce Springsteen at 62.

American Sisters Haven’t Strayed. The Vatican Has.Amy Koehlinger, Religion & PoliticsIn the middle of the 20th century, the Vatican urged sisters to reimagine their vocation for the modern world. The sisters followed obediently, despite heavy costs and dramatic upheaval. Now, a sex-obsessed papacy is trying to take it all back.

Katie Holmes Cruise Has Left the BuildingBenjamin Wallace, New YorkReflections on the celebrity projection screen known as TomKat: Did an American sweetheart mount a daring escape from the clutches of her wacko husband? Or was Tom Cruise really the dupe all along?

‘It Takes A Lot to Rattle Me’Andrew Romano, NewsweekShe lost her dad, had surgery, and tested positive for a banned substance. How Hope Solo survived—and put U.S. women's soccer in position to bring home gold.

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