Longform

He covered car accidents for a years as a journalist. Then he was in two himself.

Deana Lawson’s regal, loving, unburdened photographs imagine a world in which Black people are free from the distortions of history.

Dee Dee Blancharde was a model parent: a tireless single mom taking care of her gravely ill child. But after Dee Dee was killed, it turned out her daughter Gypsy had never been sick at all.

Looking back on the George Floyd rebellion.

Armed only with their psychotic courage, they were running, dancing, singing, smashing, burning, screaming, storming heaven: all rapturous varieties of Baraka’s “magic actions.” I listened to 19-year-olds talk nonstop throughout the night we spent in jail, as they howled insults at the officers and swapped stories of humiliation by police. It struck me that they were too young to have seen even the initial phase of BLM. Though well-acquainted with power and violence, they were tasting “politics” for the first time. Whatever the fate of the movement, I suspect that much of their future thinking will be measured against the feelings that filled the nights of 2020: the vastness and immediacy, the blur and brutal clarity.

Two ordinary Americans, inspired by right-wing extremism, plan to kidnap a cop.

An interview with Chase Strangio, who has won a series of landmark court cases in his role as ACLU deputy director for transgender justice.

A cohort of journalists is drowning in burnout, trauma, and moral injury.

For centuries, dowsers have claimed the ability to find groundwater, precious metals, and other quarry using divining rods and an uncanny intuition. Is it the real deal or woo-woo?

Jackie Thomas was $29,134 in debt and in trouble with state regulators. She hadn’t slept in days. If a judge ruled against her, she’d fail the mothers who could only keep their jobs thanks to the 24-hour child care she offered.

When a gossip rag went after the CEO, he retaliated with the brutal, brilliant efficiency he used to build his business empire.

Deer can regrow their antlers, and humans can replace their liver. What else might be possible?

A writer tries to understand his dad through the space race.

Lawyer Richard Luthmann was a Roger Stone-worshipping member of the Staten Island political scene. Then the fake Facebook posts began.

In the wartime Balkans, an encounter with a solider produced an unwanted baby, a test of international justice, and a decades-long yearning for peace.

A two-part story on Bill Gates and his revolutionary machine.

Between 1920 and 2020, the average human life span doubled. How did we do it? Science mattered—but so did activism.

Sentenced to life in prison at 16, Adolfo Davis hoped a Supreme Court ruling would give him a chance at a new beginning. But nothing about freedom turned out as he expected.

The first major interview with The Simpsons’ most prolific and legendary writer.

The soul of an octopus.

For decades, flying saucers were a punch line. Then the U.S. government got over the taboo.

On India’s Covid catastrophe.

For decades, thousands of people came to Trinidad, Colorado, to have gender confirmation surgery done by Dr. Stanley Biber. This excerpt from Going To Trinidad tells his—and one of his patient’s—poignant stories.

Blake Bailey was my favorite teacher. Years later, he forced himself on me. Why did I seek his approval for so long?

New research is intensifying the debate — with profound implications for the future of the planet.