Longform

Investigating the unsolved murder of Malcolm X’s grandson.

On the echoes between the world leading up to World War I and our present international trajectory. Then, as globalization, nationalism, and radicalism converged, and tensions within the Balkans served as a spark. Today, conflicts in the Middle East, whose borders were mostly drawn in the wake of World War I, could play a similar role.

An essay on dick culture.

Why a cow being airlifted by a helicopter says so much about the Swiss economy.

The tale of the only art exhibit in space.

On Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s lust for blood-sport.

The case of a teenager who didn’t kill his classmates—but talked about it.

After two years of filming Lawrence of Arabia, Peter O'Toole returns to his childhood home in Ireland.

Plus: 50 years later, Gay Talese remembers the late Peter O'Toole.

An investigation into the family of the accused Boston Marathon bombers.

A profile of Pope Francis.

The price we pay for cheap meat.

In 1980 a convicted con-man named Melvin Weinberg was sent by the FBI to offers bribes to U.S. Congressmen on behalf of a phony Arab sheik. The Abscam, short for ‘Abdul Scam’, sting brought down for several representatives, but longtime politician John Murtha narrowly avoided offering a bribe on camera.

The search for a disgraced ex-LAPD officer bent on killing his former colleagues and their families.

“If I were a bitch, I’d be in love with Biff Truesdale. Biff is perfect. He’s friendly, good-looking, rich, famous, and in excellent physical condition. He almost never drools.”

What the CIA really knew about Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent who disappeared in 2007.

The unraveling of Lisa Frank, Inc.

Adventures in acedia, from Aquinas to Bartleby.

“How much money do you make? And do you shave your pubic hair?”

A dispatch from Camden, “America’s most desperate town.”

New York’s Pastor Parker and his growing string of Liberty Churches, each of which will “adopt the culture of its neighborhood.”

Fast-food workers, the minimum wage, and a future served by robot labor.