Longform

Your local police department probably has a $400,00 device that listens in on cellphones. Soon your neighbor will be able to buy the same thing for $1,500.

Two years ago, the fitness guru abruptly disappeared from public life. His friends worry that he’s being held against his will inside his Hollywood Hills mansion, or something even worse.

If you don’t get sick, was it really a vacation?

The view from a low point.

Paul Bremer was briefly the Bush administration’s point person in Iraq. His decisions would have lasting consequences.

At Nancy Reagan’s memorial, Hillary Clinton praised her fellow former first lady for “starting a national conversation” about AIDS. That is not how everyone remembers it.

After a flawed sexual assault investigation, a Naval Academy instructor made it his mission to prove he did nothing wrong. The discovery of a lost cell phone told a more complicated story.

Kate del Castillo, the actress who brought Sean Penn to Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, tells her side of the story.

Part 1 of “The Mastermind,” a serialized investigation of Paul Le Roux, who went from brilliant programmer to vicious cartel boss to highly protected U.S. government asset.

How the president thinks about America’s role in the world.

The unexpected history of a name.

A story of blame.

He made billions. He lost billions. He was fired as CEO of the company he created. And on March 2, just hours after he was accused of rigging oil deals, he died in a one-car crash.

How “Count” Victor Lustig, one of America’s great con men, worked his scams.

On claiming the conquistador Juan Ponce de León as an ancestor and the fictions we tell ourselves.

She was mocked for her clothes and for her hair. Tabloids published nude photos of her and covered her custody fight. The defense called her hysterical. The judge condescended to her. She lost. And then she became a punchline. Twenty years later, thanks in part to The People v. O.J. Simpson, Marcia Clark is finally being seen in full.

“Thug is alone even in a room full of people. He is unapproachable. He radiates volatility. I can't even imagine him making actual, on-purpose eye contact with another human. Looking into a person's eyes—seeking some kind of a connection—is an admission of neediness, and Young Thug would rather be shot dead in the street than need a thing from another human being.”

“It is a story that seems almost impossible to believe: a group of female convicts, few of whom had ever played a musical instrument or taken voice lessons, forming a country and western band and becoming, at least in Texas, the Dixie Chicks of their day.”

Philanthropist and private equity mogul David Rubenstein is lauded for his patriotic donations, including half the cost of repairing the Washington Monument. He also helped save a controversial tax break billionaires love.

Bobby Gunn has fought 71 illicit bare-knuckle boxing matches. He’s never lost.

An army vet vanishes in upstate New York.

When juveniles are found guilty of sexual misconduct, the sex-offender registry can be a life sentence.

An attorney pieces together a life cut short.