Longform

On a child born during the L.A. riots, and South Central a decade later.

On Jack Idema, a con-man who once ran a pet hotel before reinventing himself as a black-ops secret agent in Afghanistan, and the history of counterinsurgency theory.

Visiting his daughter in San Francisco, the author longs for food delivery in Manhattan.

Revealing the murder of 109 Vietnamese civilians during a 1968 search-and-destroy mission on a rumored Viet Gong stronghold, often referred to in military circles as Pinkville, actually the village of My Lai.

The highest-ranking CIA officer to be convicted of spying passes the tricks of the trade along to his son.

The people behind San Francisco’s Summer of Love.

Perpetually reinvented through experimental chemistry, manufactured in Asian mills, packaged in foil with names like White Slut Concentrated and Charley Sheene for use as “hookah cleaner,” distributed in college town head shops, snorted and injected by hardened addicts and high school thrill seekers alike, bath salts may be the strangest and most volatile American drug craze since crack. And they’re (quasi) legal.

On the moral failure of über-wealthy do-gooders.

How a Mexican drug cartel makes its billions.

The education of a campaign manager.

In 1941, hundreds of Jedwabne’s Jews were massacred by their neighbors.

An interview with Marc Maron.

A profile of life in Owsley County, one of the poorest in the country.

In the remote wilderness along northern British Columbia’s Highway 16, at least 18 women have gone missing over the past four decades. Is it the work of a serial killer or multiple offenders?

An essay on language, fatherhood and forgiveness.

On the Mexican drug cartel accused of laundering money with race horses.

The game’s past, present, and future.

The decline and fall of Cabrini-Green, Chicago’s infamous public housing development.

A 21-year-old’s audacious real estate scam and subsequent escape.

A coffee shop owner finally gets to shut down his store.

On the Boston mobster’s exes.

The man who made millions selling counterfeit wines.

Invented in 1899, it hasn’t been improved upon since.

The wealthy widow of an East Bay newspaper baron, her cowboy fantasy man, and the drowning nobody could solve.