Longform

A profile of Christine Quinn, odds-on favorite to be the next mayor of New York City.

Dr. Elisabeth Targ became famous for running scientific experiments that appeared to prove the healing power of faith. Then she got sick and became a test subject herself.

On Luddites, “bands of men, organized, masked, anonymous, whose object was to destroy machinery used mostly in the textile industry,” and their literary spawn.

On the tortured psyche of former 49ers coach Bill Walsh and how it led to Finding the Winning Edge, his 550-page guide to the game that has become the football’s bible.

The life and work of Aaron Swartz, in context.

After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a 30-year-old woman loses most of her memory.

Why Iran punished two leading AIDS doctors.

Catch shares are touted by the government and environmental groups as the solution to overfishing. But for a new generation under the system, the economics consist mainly of “absentee landlords, brokers and bankers, [and] fish quota that costs more than your house.”

The outgoing treasury secretary on his financial crisis regrets, putting policy before politics, and whether Washington will ever be able to strike a grand bargain.

Calculating restitution for victims of child pornography.

“Hillary Clinton was never a shy person.”

A history of the Hollywood publicity racket.

On being stalked in the age of the Internet.

Twenty years ago, Ramaphosa was by Mandela’s side as apartheid ended and in line to become deputy president. He didn’t get the job. Now one of the richest men in Africa, he’s finally getting the chance.

Digging for Return of the Jedi set remnants in the desert.

On the cranky king of New York sports talk.

A scholarly dispute devolves into criminal impersonation.

The science behind why high school sucks.

How the United States came to spend more on defense than all the other nations of the world combined.

Afghanistan’s Kyrgyz nomads survive in one of Earth’s most remote places, a pocket of land 14,000 feet high where the currency is sheep, the dream is a road, and many will go an entire lifetime without ever seeing a tree.

Learning of a plot against the life of the newly elected Lincoln, Alan Pinkerton decamps to Baltimore and infiltrates the conspiracy.

A trip to CES, “what a World’s Fair might look like if brands were more important than countries.”