Out of Thin Air
Joe Namath believes hyperbaric oxygen treatment can reverse the brain damage he and others suffered playing football, so much so that a treatment center carries his name. The science, however, doesn’t support his claims.
The Reckless Plot to Overthrow Africa's Most Absurd Dictator
Mistakes were made by the middle-aged Americans who hoped to take over Gambia.
E. L. Doctorow, The Art of Fiction No. 94
“I tell them it’s like driving a car at night: you never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
The Illusionist
Al Seckel held legendary parties in the 1980s and 90s, with attendees ranging from Slash to Francis Crick. He later became a collector of optical illusions and gave a TED talk on the topic. He may have also misled and defrauded many of the people he came into contact with.
"We Are Drowning in Material"
Catching up with Julian Assange and Wikileaks.
Cheating, Incorporated
On the adultery website AshleyMadison.com.
“These People Need to Know What We Have Gone Through”
To reduce recidivism, a program brings criminals face to face with their victims. The results aren’t always what you’d expect.
Joe Gould's Teeth
Falling into the black hole of literary journalism’s most famous eccentic
The Voice
On the life and death of The Voice contestant Anthony Riley.
Stowaways and Crimes Aboard a Scofflaw Ship
Working on the high seas is always dangerous, but the Dona Liberta has a particularly bad reputation.
The 1995 Chicago Heat Wave: An Oral History
Memories of a scorching three days that left 739 dead.
"I Definitely Identify With That Murderer Thing, Where You Click Off"
On the controversial British newspaper columnist Katie Hopkins.
In the Valley of the Shadow of Death
In Guyana after the Jonestown massacre, with the survivors and the dead.
Fast Food
Life as a halal butcher in New York.
"I'm Not a Butcher"
An interview with a man who organized suicide bombings for ISIS.
My Month of Hell in a Gay CrossFit Cult
“The whole thing has a sort of Taylor Swift-meets-jihad feel.”
You Just Got Out of Prison. Now What?
Life on the outside is full of unpleasant surprises for longtime inmates.
The Mysterious Death of a Doctor Who Peddled Autism ‘Cures’ to Thousands
After a lab linked to him was raided, James Jeffrey Bradstreet’s body was found with a bullet wound to the chest. His death was ruled a suicide, but other theories abound.
Killing the Colorado
An investigation into why the West is running out of water.
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Holy Crop
The labyrinth of policies that reward Arizona farmers for growing cotton, which uses six times as much water as lettuce and 60 percent more than wheat.
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The ‘Water Witch’
The woman who found the water to keep Las Vegas growing, for better or worse.
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Use It or Lose It
How a century-old water deal is encouraging waste and worsening the drought.
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End of the Miracle Machines
How the achievement of moving water comes at an enormous cost to the environment.
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Less Than Zero
Ground water and surface water stores are interconnected. But we count them twice.
On Spinsters
On being a woman, alone.
The Rhino's Last Stand
One rancher has a plan to save the endangered rhinoceros: domesticate them.
The Myth of the Ethical Shopper
When it comes to sweatshops and child labor, your $7 H&M gym shorts aren’t really the problem (or the solution).
Death of a Prosecutor
Alberto Nisman accused Iran and Argentina of colluding to bury a terrorist attack. Did it get him killed?
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Public Debt"
David Hosack attends to a mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton.
"Hosack felt a hitching panic build, his instincts wound too tightly, overtaxed, a clockwork spring about to snap. Only Hamilton could do this to him. The frame prone before him was frail, narrow, woman-small. His coat, waistcoat, shirt, underclothes sopping him up, holding him together. Delicate embroidery sodden, delicate fingers cold with the loss of blood. Hosack had seen this man’s blood before, and the blood and vomit and delirious fever-dreams of his wife, his children. But this was—Hosack sickened, the scene before him tilting. Three years before—Hamilton’s son, Phillip, bleeding out after his own duel on the same Weehawken site. Their faces so alike, their mangled bodies. Their right sides."
Re-Re-Re-Reintroducing Hillary Clinton
How do you rollout a candidate whom everyone thinks they already know?
