Longform

Controversy over the alleged gold standard of forensic evidence.

Inside the investigation that broke the biggest case of insider trading in history.

How a scandal involving sex, money and a Wiccan coven brought down yogi John Friend.

Scientists quarrel about the fate of animals living in the 1,600 square mile exclusion zone.

The author of Truly Tasteless Jokes unmasks herself.

On the possibility of “fluid intelligence.”

At 67, the American Bandstand icon remains “one hard-working mother.”

The story of the Huffington Post.

A profile of environmental activist Van Jones.

On the trade school’s business model and its founder, a former movie producer named Jerry Sherlock.

An interview with the experimental filmmaker and Hollywood chronicler Kenneth Anger, 85.

Neal punctuated Jack’s riffing with his “yesses” and “that’s rights,” head bobbing on his neck like a novice prizefighter’s. After four years of New York nihilism and intellection, Neal – wiping Jack’s face with his handkerchief – Neal – who looked so much like Jack himself, an athlete like Jack – celebrated lover of women and sharer of Allen’s passionate dark soul – finally the long-lost brother who said, “Go ahead, everything you do is great” – “a Western kinsmen of the sun” – “a wild yea-saying over-burst of American joy.”

The life and myth of Neal Cassady, Beat companion and muse for Kesey, Wolfe, Kerouac, Ginsberg, The Grateful Dead and more.

The story behind the story that ended Dan Rather’s career.

A profile of the eccentric Gene Weingarten, the only person to twice win the Pulitzer for feature writing.

She survived an evil, gruesome attack. Her partner did not. An account of a victim, a widow, telling her story on the witness stand.

Update, 4/16/12: This piece was just awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing.

Jonathan Blow is both the video game industry’s most cynical critic and its most ambitious game developer. As he finishes his indescribable game-opus, a trip inside the head of a videogame auteur.

How group of misfits in Texas including Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings snubbed Nashville and brought the hippies and rednecks together. An oral history of outlaw country.

An early profile of Lena Dunham.

On a Victorian-era murder case, and the novel it inspired.

On fashion, gender, a finding oneself in a pair of drop-crotch pants.

A Supreme Court Justice revisits a rape trial from the 1950s.

On singer-songwriters Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman and Van Dyke Parks.

I get the sense that the labels' attitude toward these guys wasn't altogether different from a parent's attitude toward gifted children: Get them through the system, but make sure to give them a clean little corner to doodle in and pat them on the head when they show you what they've done, whether you understand it or not.

The expansion of private-security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan is well known. But armed security personnel account for only about sixteen per cent of the over-all contracting force. The vast majority—more than sixty per cent of the total in Iraq—aren’t hired guns but hired hands. These workers, primarily from South Asia and Africa, often live in barbed-wire compounds on U.S. bases, eat at meagre chow halls, and host dance parties featuring Nepalese romance ballads and Ugandan church songs. A large number are employed by fly-by-night subcontractors who are financed by the American taxpayer but who often operate outside the law.

An investigation of the county’s Tactical Narcotics Team and, in particular, a Christmas-themed sting dubbed “Santa’s Helper”:

A two-month investigation by New Times has found that Santa's Helper was a colossal waste of police resources. Of the 112 suspects arrested, 73 people were charged only with misdemeanor pot possession. The vast majority of the busted pot smokers were either released within 24 hours or avoided jail by promising to show up in court. Of the 73 alleged tokers, 68 of them — including Dante Level and his siblings — had no violent criminal record. If they were guilty of anything, it was smoking a joint on their own front porch.