On BP’s actions after the oil spill.

On Chuck Lorre, creator of the #1 (Two and a Half Men) and #2 comedy on American television, former cruise ship guitarist, composer of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song, and recently antagonist of Charlie Sheen.

Driving cross-country in a chemical tanker.

How and why Zappos works.

Manny Ramirez is a deeply frustrating employee, the kind whose talents are so prodigious that he gets away with skipping meetings, falling asleep on the job, and fraternizing with the competition.

How France’s public schools became the battleground in a culture war.

A profile of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.

On David Milch; Yale fraternity brother of George W. Bush, literature professor, longtime junkie, creator of NYPD Blue, Deadwood (which was in production when this profile was written), and the forthcoming racetrack-set HBO series Luck.

A profile of a pre-30 Rock Tina Fey.

A profile of Sabrina Harman, the soldier who took many of the notorious Abu Ghraib photographs.

On the ground in post-disaster Japan.

Barry Michels is Hollywood’s most successful therapist cum motivation coach with an approach that combines Jungian psychology, encouraging patients to embrace their dark side, and “three-by-five index cards inscribed with Delphic pronouncements like THE HIERARCHY WILL NEVER BE CLEAR.”

Hollywood makes bad movies because “rotten pictures make money.”

The definitive story of a ubiquitous software. PowerPoint’s origins, its evolution, and its mind-boggling impact on corporate culture.

A profile of the (now former) director of the House of Dior, John Galliano.

On the future of the liberal Israeli newspaper Haartez.

On Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, “the permanent revolutionary,” and his son Seif.

How focusing on the neediest patients could radically reduce health care costs.

A grandmother from Chicago, she’s one of those people who knows everybody. And those people who know everybody, the connectors, make the world work. A study of the power of (offline) social networking.

On the dilemmas facing a (very famous) working mother in New York City. “It is less dangerous to draw a cartoon of Allah French-kissing Uncle Sam—which, let me make it very clear, I have not done—than it is to speak honestly about this topic.”

The story of three months spent training reporters in Saudi Arabia, where the press is far from free. “I suspected that behind the closed gates of Saudi society there was a social revolution in the making. With some guidance, I thought, these journalists could help inspire change.”

On the Cairo knifing of 82-year-old Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz and its aftermath.

A profile of Arianna Huffington.

Reporting from inside the Church’s Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles.

During his 35 years as a member of the Church of Scientology, Oscar-winning writer and director Paul Haggis went “all the way to the top.” The story of why he left, and what happened once he did.