Longform

A gospel singer comes out.

How a Canadian used a Mohawk reservation’s lakes to smuggle tons of marijuana to stash houses in Brooklyn and Staten Island, resulting in nearly a billion in profits, which he laundered through the Sinaloa Cartel.

On the rise in gay teens who are cast out by their families.

A woman travels with a band on the way to their next show.

On fathers, mothers, and doctors.

Caring for a demented father.

Raising a cow on an industrial feedlot.

Profiles of the true believers.

Tony Ma will bet you as much as $600,000 to train your student for college acceptance. If the student gets into their top choice school, Ma takes the cash. Rejected? He gets nothing.

How an education reform effort became the new Obamacare.

A 15-year-old Russian has a shorter life expectancy than a peer in Bangladesh, Cambodia, or Yemen.

“People always ask Rivers why she doesn’t just retire, enjoy her old age. ‘But they don’t get that I love it,’ she says. ‘All I ever wanted was this. I’m lucky, you idiots.’”

A Texas border town fails to keep up.

On the court system’s excessive fines.

The case of Brett Kimberlin.

A couple’s only son is killed in Iraq.

One rabbi’s tactics against husbands who refuse to divorce their wives.

On childhood amnesia, or why we don’t remember much before age seven.

“I did a few days on Franco’s As I Lay Dying, and the vibe on the set was very heavy and serious. The only thing I can equate it to is tripping with a bunch of your friends.”

A dispatch from Donetsk.

“They thought they were going to change the world,” he says of the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project volunteers. “They didn’t expect that white folks would be so vicious.”

An essay on motivation.

In 1981, Mauritania became the last country on Earth to abolish slavery. The law had little effect; at least 140,000 people are still enslaved today. Their best hope for freedom is an abolitoinist named Biram Dah Abeid.