Anu Narayanswamy crunches the numbers on small-dollar donations. Niha Masih and Joanna Slater explain the changes and turmoil in Kashmir. And Travis DeShong on what it takes to become the voice inside someone’s head.

Anu Narayanswamy crunches the numbers on small-dollar donations. Niha Masih and Joanna Slater explain the changes and turmoil in Kashmir. And Travis DeShong on what it takes to become the voice inside someone’s head.

The rush for small-money donors

In the first six months of 2019, more than 2.3 million people donated $200 or less to Democratic presidential candidates. These small-dollar contributions totaled nearly $110 million.





That’s all according to data recently released by the online donation platform ActBlue, which reporter Anu Narayanswamy says offers a look at how small-dollar, grass-roots donors are shaping the Democratic primary — in part, by limiting who can perform in debates.





“Small money has become an important metric to see how a candidate is faring,” Narayanswamy says. “One of the key things that the Democratic party is looking at is not just how much money they’re getting from small dollars, but also saying that you should be getting small dollars from every state, or at least so many states.”





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Undoing ‘7 decades of history in Kashmir’

India is revoking a constitutional provision granting certain autonomous powers to the state of Kashmir, setting the stage for new clashes between India and Pakistan in the disputed region.





Life in the territories — which are set to lose statehood — has since been paralyzed. Indian authorities have put prominent politicians under house arrest, cut off mobile and Internet services to the region, and have asked residents to stay indoors.





Reporter Niha Masih was able to visit the disputed area, and says people are still in shock over the announcement. “They’re still coming to terms with what happened.”





Joanna Slater also covers India for the Post, and says that stripping Kashmir of its semi-autonomy has been a longtime goal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hindu nationalists.





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Training to become the voice inside your head

If reading audiobooks sounds easy, a few hours in a professional booth can be humbling. At least, that’s what reporter Travis DeShong learned when he sat in on a narration session in New York.





He says that the pay isn’t great when you’re just starting out, and it’s actually tough to always sound like you know what you’re talking about. “It’s creating an illusion, in a lot of ways, which is why the craft is such a difficult one. But it can be a really mesmerizing one when you’re really good at it.”





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