Longform

On the last day of their junior year at Harvard, one roommate kills the other, then hangs herself. The press descends. A year later, a reporter searches for the real story.

The writer and his girlfriend move to the Dominican Republic, joining the rapidly expanding community of expats who claim to have found paradise. They promptly get robbed at gunpoint. To cope, he investigates the country.

But the web is not just some kind of magic all-absorbing meta-medium. It's its own thing. And like other media it has a question that it answers better than any other. That question is: Why wasn't I consulted?

Last year, an Mossad hit squad traveled to Dubai to assassinate a Hamas leader. They completed their mission, but were later humiliated when a twenty-seven minute video of their movements was posted online. How their cover got blown.

A caller poses as a policeman and convinces McDonald’s managers to strip-search a female employee. It’s not the first time.

The backstory on Julian Assange’s relationship with the Guardian and the New York Times.

How Internet porn has altered the ways we think about, and engage in, sex.

The new purgatory; what becomes of digital identities after death.

On how 21st century culture shifts killed the nerd and what lies ahead.

On the (disputed) origins of the Huffington Post.

From the 1940s through the early 70s, incoming freshman at Harvard, Yale, Vassar, Wellesley, and several other top schools were photographed nude in the name of science–bogus science, as it turned out. Most of the photos were destroyed, but not all.

A profile of Mitch Landrieu, the first white mayor of New Orleans in nearly 30 years–part of a larger post-Katrina trend in the city’s politics. “The elected leadership looks almost like a photo negative of the pre-Katrina government.”

A 15-year-old dies shortly after collapsing from heatstroke during a high school football practice. Was it has coach’s fault? The state thought so, and put him on trial.

Arnold Weiss escaped Germany as a kid in 1938, leaving his family behind. He returned seven years later, now a U.S. intelligence officer tasked with tracking down fugitive Nazis. The ultimate revenge story.

A profile of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

A reporter heads to Istanbul, where Iverson is playing minor league hoops in a 3,200-seat arena and hanging out at T.G.I. Friday’s.

The story behind the fall of Saddam’s statue in Baghdad.

Memories of the expat revolutionary scene in 1980s Nicaragua. An excerpt from Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War.

“In 2000, Zimbabwe’s dictator began kicking white farmers off their land. One man decided to stay.”

How Zion, Ill., a fundamentalist Christian settlement with a population of 6,250, created one of the most popular stations in the country during the early days of radio.

Colombian traffickers have a new smuggling method of choice: specially designed submarines capable of carrying 10 tons of cocaine and covering 2,000 miles without refueling.

On the evolution of Nigeria’s booming film industry, which produces 50 full-length features a week.

The fever-dream life and death of Chinese poet Gu Cheng.

Inside Office 39, a state-run counterfeiting operation designed to keep Kim Jong-il flush.

The author of True Grit on growing up in Arkansas during World War II.