Longform

As labels big and small attempt to gain traction in the world’s largest market, they’re learning that selling pop is never simple in the epicenter of piracy.

Teo Brank found a lucrative side hustle arranging escorts for sex parties. But when his business soured, he turned to extortion.

On the history of the Bund, an armed, socialist anti-Zionist group that was once the most popular Jewish party in Poland until they were murdered in the Holocaust.

An acclaimed American charity said it was saving some of the world’s most vulnerable girls from sexual exploitation. But from the very beginning, girls were being raped.

Investors all over the world fell for the schemes of the man who called himself Khalid bin al-Saud. But the truth turned out to be more incredible than the lie.

In 1967, a 56-year-old lawyer met a young inmate with a brilliant mind and horrifying stories about life inside. Their complicated alliance—and even more complicated romance—would shed light on a nationwide scandal, disrupt a system of abuse and virtual slavery across the state, and change incarceration in Texas forever.

Scenes from a local music venue.

The military wants future super-soldiers to control robots with their thoughts.

A Philadelphia neighborhood is the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast. Addicts come from all over, and many never leave.

The shooting of a civilian exposes the underbelly of a small town police department.

“Yeah, okay, listen. It’s Sy Hersh. Who the f— do you think I am? Your f—ing wife? What do I look like to you? Your f—ing brother-in-law?”

Being off the grid suits Kurt Vile just fine. Sitting on the wraparound porch in jeans and a green T-shirt he got at the Ramones Museum in Berlin, unruly curls falling well below his shoulders, the 38-year-old Philadelphia singer-guitarist squirts several drops of a tincture labeled “Calm Mind” into a plastic water bottle and gives it a thorough swish. “Ayurvedic herbs,” he explains after gulping down his concoction. “It’s like nature’s Xanax.” He doesn’t sound entirely convinced.

“Anytime I was called a New Journalist I winced a little with embarrassment.”

Was Dr. Alexander Mishkin, Hero of Russia, responsible for the Skripal poisoning?

Should marrying a child be allowed?

just three months, we have seen Charlie and Tessy through a lifetime of crises — temporary sobriety, meth binges, two stints in jail, three moves, one eviction, several religious, end-of-the-world texts on our phones, a dozen different phones and phone numbers (meth addicts go through “Obama Phones” like packs of cigarettes), and a stay in a psychiatric hospital. Every day brings some kind of cruel surprise, some hardship that would pummel me, but is just business as usual for them.

How prison changed the former pro scout.

The platform’s entertainment for children is weirder—and more globalized—than adults could have expected.

The author spent a day with three men in a high-end security detail to find out how it feels to be safe.

A profile of a “49-year-old man whose father has just yelled at him,” Frank Sinatra Jr., a son living under the longest shadow.

The hidden history of poker and crypto.

A profile of the postwar Bronx Bombers.

When the Swiss Alps heat up, the ice gives up bodies and secrets.

Why did it take so long for the systems that are supposed to police problem doctors to stop him from operating?