‘Bro, I’m Going Rogue’: The Wall Street Informant Who Double-Crossed the FBI
Guy Gentile flipped, and flipped again.
Why Does Mount Rushmore Exist?
Visiting a gargantuan shrine to democracy in 2017.
Can We Know What Animals Are Thinking?
The inner lives of other species.
Sheelah Kolhatkar is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street.
“Suddenly the financial crisis happened and all this stuff that had been hidden from view came out into the open. It was like, ‘Oh, this was actually all kind of a big façade.’ And there was all this fraud and stealing and manipulation and corruption, and all these other things going on underneath the whole shiny rock star surface. And that really also demonstrated to people how connected business stories, or anything to do with money, are to everything else going on. I mean, really almost everything that happens in our world, if you trace it back to its source, it’s money at the root of it.”
Thanks to MailChimp, Blue Apron, and Stamps.com for sponsoring this week's episode.
Is it Too Late to Save Hong Kong from Beijing’s Authoritarian Grasp?
The city’s radical pro-democracy movement faces a stiff test from Mainland China.
In Conversation: Robert Silvers
An interview with the founding editor of the New York Review of Books, who died Monday.
Paper Lion
A profile of Jimmy Breslin.
From the Longform Archive: Con Men
Here’s our complete archive of articles about con men, imposters, and scam artists.
The Strange, Spectacular Con of Bobby Charles Thompson
Donors all over America opened their wallets for his United States Navy Veterans Association. Politicians all over Washington posed for grip-and-grins with him. But not only was he not a legitimate fundraiser for military families—he wasn’t even Bobby Charles Thompson.
Door-Busting Drug Raids Leave a Trail of Blood
An investigation into the use of no-knock raids — conducted by SWAT officers with machine guns, flash-bang grenades, and body armor — that have time and time again led to avoidable deaths, gruesome injuries, and costly legal settlements.
A Death in Emergency Room One
How doctors tried, and failed, to save President Kennedy.
Kellyanne Conway Is a Star
A profile.
10 Murders, 3 Nazis, and Germany's Moment of Reckoning
As a right-wing terrorist cell went on a seven-year killing spree, did authorities look the other way?
Chuck Berry Goddamn!
The artist at 85.
The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency
“In my view, Trump wouldn’t be president if not for Bob.”
The Deliciously Fishy Case of The "Codfather"
He was the most powerful fish broker in New Bedford, America’s most valuable seafood port. The Russians who arrived looking to buy his operation were undercover agents and he told them everything.
The March on Everywhere
The ragged glory of female activism.
Jason Molina's Long Dark Blues
On the seminal songwriter, who died four years ago today, in his final days before succumbing to dipsomania.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Exist West [Excerpt]"
An excerpt from Hamid's latest novel: a man and a woman caught in between escape and uncertainty.
Operation London Bridge: The Secret Plans for the Days After the Queen's Death
She is venerated around the world. She has outlasted 12 US presidents. She stands for stability and order. But her kingdom is in turmoil, and her subjects are in denial that her reign will ever end. That’s why the palace has a plan.
The Grays of Our Lives
On gray.
The Case of Oswaldo Martinez
Deaf, mute and undocumented, he was charged 12 years ago with a capital crime and has been in legal limbo ever since.
Al Baker is a crime reporter at The New York Times, where he writes the series “Murder in the 4-0.”
“When there’s a murder in a public housing high rise, there’s a body on the floor. Jessica White in a playground, on a hot summer night. Her children saw it. Her body fell by a bench by a slide. You look up and there’s hundreds of windows, representing potentially thousands of eyes, looking down on that like a fishbowl. …They’re seeing it through the window and they can see that there’s a scarcity of response. And then they measure that against the police shooting that happened in February when there were three helicopters in the air and spotlights shining down on them all night and hundreds of officers with heavy armor going door to door to door to find out who shot a police officer. They can see the difference between a civilian death and an officer death.”
Thanks to MailChimp and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode.
Into the Woods
At the age of 20, Christopher Knight parked his car on a remote trail in Maine and walked away. He had no plan. He had no tools. And he survived alone for 27 years.
Thinx Promised a Feminist Utopia to Everyone But Its Employees
The period underwear giant struggles to live up to its corporate ideals.
