Longform

“It never really worked for me to have long arguments about motivation. I think looking at your own life, on- and offscreen, you can motivate anything, or you can delude yourself into anything.”

A profile of Merle Haggard.

Welcome to Wakaliwood, where a resourceful producer in the slums of Kampala makes action movies like Who Killed Captain Alex? Uganda’s First Action Movie for about $200 apiece.

After too many tragedies, a veteran guide may turn his back on the mountain.

Fifty years ago, Geraldo Foos bought the Manor House Motel. While his customers had sex, he watched from above and took scrupulous notes. Only three people in the world knew what he was doing: Foos, his wife, and the author.

How America’s first serial killer terrorized the city of Austin on Christmas Eve, 1885.

On a company that provides fake paparazzi, pretend campaign supporters, and counterfeit protesters on demand.

For decades, the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca has quietly hid money in offshore accounts for the world’s wealthiest people. Following the largest document leak in history, the Panama Papers, the firm’s secrets are now public.

Inside the most unorthodox campaign in political history.

An interview with the novelist.

When you’ve never eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because the idea of peanut butter and jelly touching seems like too much, you turn to legendary chef Daniel Boulud for help.

On the 1988 presidential election and the boys on the bus.

How three friends and a team of frat brothers made a fortune smuggling people along the most heavily patrolled stretch of highway in Texas.

Over four months, a methane well in southern California’s Aliso Canyon leaked Lebanon’s equivalent of yearly emissions into the atmosphere. No one knows what the long-term effects will be.

A murder involving one of the India’s celebrity couples has mesmerized the country and exposed some of its darkest fears.

More than 15% of Detroit’s adults have asthma, and 82% of black students go to schools in the most polluted parts of the city.

A story of medical ailments, family dynamics, and conservation work.

How one of the world’s foremost Beatles collectors died homeless on the streets of Little Rock.

On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman entered the University of Texas at Austin’s Main Building. Armed with a number of rifles, he proceeded to kill 14 people and wound 32. Among them was a pregnant Claire Wilson.

How a 29-year-old actress, reeling from the death of her first love and battling Dustin Hoffman off-screen, found herself on the set of Kramer vs. Kramer.

She believed she had survived the worst time of her life. But there was more to come.

Why ISIS is winning the social media war.

“He was untouchable, or he thought he was. But that era is over, for all those guys.”