The shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later culture of the 101st Airborne Division, an execution of captured Iraqi prisoners, and how far up the chain of command responsibility lies.

How Christopher Hitchens, a former socialist, became one of the most vigorous defenders of the war in Iraq.

The man who keeps finding famous fingerprints on uncelebrated works of art.

War stories from the world of Manhattan real estate, written during an era when everybody knew the Internet would completely change the business and nobody quite knew how.

Saad Mohseni, Afghanistan’s first media mogul and a business partner of Rupert Murdoch, produces everything from nightly news broadcasts to the controversial Afghan version of American Idol.

Is Mike Huckabee the GOP’s best hope in 2012? Mike Huckabee’s not so sure.

The boom in dystopian fiction aimed at young adults.

Atul Gawande’s recent commencement address at Stanford’s School of Medicine graduation. “Each of you is now an expert. Congratulations. So why—in your heart of hearts—do you not quite feel that way?”

Buckminster Fuller reconsidered.

Fred Franzia makes a lot of money selling really cheap wine.

The justly paranoid man behind WikiLeaks.

How smallpox went from eradicated disease to the ideal weapon of bioterrorists.

What does it take to win the World Taxidermy Championships?

The not-so-underground culture of neuroenhancing drug use, and where it’s headed.

The fatal allure of the Golden Gate Bridge and why it doesn’t have a barrier to thwart potential leapers.

Andrew Breitbart’s empire of bluster.

The eighteen-year-old Moscow dropout behind chatroulette.com.

The truck driver who reverse engineered the atomic bomb.

The city of Boston, the Tea Party movement, and the rightful heir to the American Revolution.

An artist takes on “the umbrella problem,” which runs so deep the U.S. Patent Office has four full-time examiners dedicated solely to assessing ideas for umbrella improvement.

“Amazon has done a great job,” Jobs said. “We’re going to stand on their shoulders and go a little bit farther.” Or they were planning to stand on Amazon’s neck and press down hard.

A review of Treme, the new HBO show about post-Katrina New Orleans from David Simon, creator of The Wire. “The series virtually prohibits you from loving it,” Franklin writes, “while asking you to value it.”

The inside story of how an ABC nature shoot in Africa end up producing  a snuff film.