Longform

A whale permeates a series of culture clashes.

The Libyan Investment Authority was brand new, staffed by people who barely understood finance and had billions to invest. Goldman Sachs saw a whale. Now the Libyans want their money back.

Baltimore’s state’s attorney gambled that prosecuting six officers for the death of Freddie Gray would help heal her city. She lost much more than just the case.

“There are some things nobody needs in this world, and a bright-red, hunch-back, warp-speed 900cc cafe racer is one of them—but I want one anyway, and on some days I actually believe I need one. That is why they are dangerous.”

A profile of the filmmaker Errol Morris as he prepared to release The Thin Blue Line after a decade of limited distribution, semi-poverty, and a side career as a private detective.

Alben Sagan got his name from the U.S. Marshals. Then he got a fortune from a woman he’d only known for a few years.

“I took my son to Paris fashion week, and all I got was a profound understanding of who he is, what he wants to do with his life, and how it feels to watch a grown man stride down a runway wearing shaggy yellow Muppet pants.”

A conversation with the anonymous novelist.

The work of Doctors Without Borders is in jeopardy.

“The most important fast food restaurant in America is a radical burger joint in Watts.”

A profile of the comic.

On the journey of 24-year-old Jose Fernandez, the Cuban defector turned Major League all-star, who died Sunday.

On Hillary Clinton’s policy team.

A boy whose skin blisters at the smallest touch is fighting for his life.

The perilous existence of confidential informants.

An examination of the continued fascination with the 6-year-old beauty queen, 20 years after her murder.

Inside the thriving subculture of Japanese men who eschew sex and romance with real live people in favor of real relationships with 2-D characters printed on body pillows.

A presidential historian interviews a president focused on history.

The story of an 86-year-old Norwegian man who tired to circumnavigate the globe, solo, in an engineless sailboat he built himself.

“Miles Davis was a deeply competitive artist, and the idea that he was losing audiences to white rock musicians with inferior skills—and, worse, had to open for them at concerts—inspired him to beat them at their own game. But he did so very much on his own terms.”

With Just Mayo, Josh Tetrick wanted to build the first sustainable-food unicorn. He’ll need to fend off the feds first.

She has convinced her followers she is a pretty-in-pink naïf, an escort, an unhinged ex, an office drone, and, most recently, an expectant mother. None of it is real.

The downfall of a Jesuit school prefect.

How a pair of HGTV stars are trying to renovate the reputation of Waco, Texas.