Longform

Steven Cohen, troubled founder a $14 billion hedge fund, has an eye for modern art.

As NATO leaves, the Afghan National Army grapples with a resilient Taliban.

The story was told by Sports Illustrated, CBS News, and countless others: linbeacker Manti Te’o, Heisman trophy candidate and the face of Notre Dame football, was playing brilliantly despite the tragic loss of his girlfriend to leukemia early in the season. The reporters missed one key element of Te’o’s story, however: the girl hadn’t died. She couldn’t have. She didn’t exist.

In 1980, Richard Pryor doused himself in rum, lit himself, and streaked though the streets or Northridge in a ball of flames. He would go on to live another 25 years.

From pinball prohibition in 1940s NYC to Dave & Buster’s, the rise and fall of the American arcade.

On the casting process for New York’s cult leader-like spin instructors.

An inmate’s protest.

Why parties, love, kids, conversation and more are so miserable (at least to Phillip Lopate).

An oral history of the University of Texas Tower massacre.

A reassessment of the calm, cool JFK.

The psychology of cults and the scholars who fight about it.

The rise of Israel’s far right.

Adventures in public speaking.

A bookkeeper’s $9 million swindle, her lavish second life, and the boss who didn’t notice.

A day in the economic life of the Nairobi’s Kibera, the largest shanty-town in Africa.

A eulogy for the activist.

Parsing the lives of middle-class twentysomethings.

The U.N.’s role in creating an epidemic in Haiti.

A reporter who investigated Scientology tracks down the man who once ran the church’s intelligence operations – and who may hold the secret to years of harassment (and the mysterious death of a pet dog).

The author travels to Dubai; Arab children see snow for the first time, which is made by a Kenyan.

An investigation into the death of a Canadian soldier in Lebanon.

An investigation into the death of a sacred white buffalo and the man who raised it.