Longform

He was the poster boy for the movement to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Now Dan Choi is sleeping on a couch, smoking too much weed, watching TED talks and wondering what he’ll do with the rest of his life.

On Ambien and the search for the next blockbuster insomnia drug.

At 9:14pm on November 22, 1987, sportscaster Dan Roan was doing the Bears highlights on Chicago’s WGN-TV when the station’s signal was hijacked. Someone wearning a rubber Max Headroom mask appeared, silently, on TV screens around the city. A few hours later, Headroom popped up again on another channel, this time for longer and with audio. Despite FBI and FCC investigations, the case remains unsolved.

How the American worker got screwed.

In the ’90s, a gynecologist named Gao Yaojie exposed an AIDS epidemic in rural China and the ensuing government cover-up. Forced to leave, she’s now 85 and living alone in New York.

The conspiracy theories surrounding the 1931 death of Hitler’s niece and object of affection.

On the factories of India and the women whose lives they ruin.

A Bosnian social psychologist who studies guilt and responsibility in the collective memory (and denial) of Sreberbica, which is “among the most scientifically documented mass killings in history.”

The death of a Russian dissident and how radioactive poison became a tool of assassins.

A profile of the world’s top photo retoucher, who typically can retouch over 100 images in a single issue of Vogue.

A political history of Donald Rumsfeld.

On Silvio Berlusconi’s hedonism.

Berlusconi is Italy’s waning Hugh Hefner, alternately reviled and admired for his loyalty to his own appetites—except that he’s supposed to be running the country.

Lyndon Baines Johnson in retirement.

An interview with a Mexican-born American attorney who defended and eventually smuggled for the cartels in the ’90s.

Adventures as a mortuary assistant.

On faith and football.

An investigation into how Hollywood abuses animals.

A former teacher on what students lose when elementary schools skimp on science.

Eleven years ago, three-year-old Audrey Santo fell into a pool. She nearly drowned. Much of her brain died. She cannot speak, can only barely move. And every Wednesday, pilgrims show up at her family’s house, ready for a miracle.

On new art boom and one of its most powerful players, David Zwirner.

The fight to vaccinate children in the border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan as part of an attempt to eradicate polio worldwide.

The challenges of establishing a legal marijuana economy in Washington State.

After circulating Lolita in secret amongst a small circle of New Yorker editors and publishers, Vladamir Nabokov finally placed it at Olympia Press. Three weeks before publication, a slumping and broke Dorothy Parker appeared in The New Yorker with a story entitled “Lolita” about a teenage bride, her jealous mother, and a much older man.