Longform

Russia has ended its death penalty, leaving in its place five prison “colonies” to house its most hardened criminals, nicknamed “The White Swan”, “The Black Dolphin”, “The Vologda Coin”, “The Village of Harps”. Inside “The Black Eagle.”

Requiem for a viral hit.

“I hate classical music: not the thing but the name. It traps a tenaciously living art in a theme park of the past. It cancels out the possibility that music in the spirit of Beethoven could still be created today.”

You watch your best friend jump off a bridge trying to end his life. What do you do? Vino Richemond jumped in after him.

The brain of Henry Molaison gave science most of what it knows about memory. Dr. Jacopo Annese believes there’s even more to learn.

A single-page version of Shalhoup’s reporting on the Black Mafia Family, one of the largest cocaine empires in American history.

Booker winner Howard Jacobson on the bumper crop of sex worker memoirs and what they say about our understanding of paid sex.

Many experts believe it’s inevitable that in the coming decades, humans will figure out how to live considerably longer lives. It might not be a good thing.

How virtual worlds like Ultima Online form economies and the sellers who make a living in digital goods.

Behind the scenes of Conan vs. Leno. An excerpt from The War for Late Night.

A profile of Auburn quarterback Cameron Newton, junior college transfer and Heisman Trophy frontrunner.

On China’s modern-day Communist Party and why foundational myths can never be shed.

How an aging trio of Irish ‘travelers’ criss-crossed America in a mobile home conning Home Depot out of over $1 million.

An early attempt to explain the world-changing power of computer software—and the minds of young programmers like Bill Gates—to a mass audience. “Software,” the article begins, “is the magic carpet to the future.”

On public radio and the emerging genre of shows inspired by This American Life.

When ‘Ceca’, the Madonna of the Balkans, met Arkan, bank robber turned paramilitary leader and war criminal, and how it all came to a tragic end in the lobby of the Belgrade Intercontinental.

A profile of embattled White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

The cops thought they had captured a fugitive. They had not. Elias Fishburne was a hairdresser from Maryland and was going to jail.

400,000 Wiki-leaked reports that confirm the minute-by-minute misadventures of a “military at war with its own inner demons” in the unforgiving terrain of Iraq.

How two Italian teenagers hacked the Soviet space program and may have heard the dying breaths of a lost cosmonaut.

Nineteenth century Muslim-Christian hero Abd el-Kader, the “Algerian George Washington.”

Are we at war? The U.S. government’s evolving response to cyber security and its impact on privacy.

Why Darwin’s theory of sexual selection is wrong and “gayness is a necessary side effect of getting along.”

On the set of Afghanistan’s first soap opera and at home with its cast.

When it comes to representing pharmaceutical companies, a doctor’s medical record is far less important than his or her ability to sell.