After two tours in Iraq, the writer returns to a volatile region of Afghanistan as an embedded journalist.

A 2011 profile of LeBron James, originally meant to run in Port, that was killed by Nike.

On the anger that led to the Watts Riots of 1965, the mistakes made during those six days in August, and how little changed afterward.

On the seminal songwriter, who died four years ago today, in his final days before succumbing to dipsomania.

A torrid phone sex affair begins with a random call in a motel and ends a year later with a face-to-face meeting.

Each year, thousands of people pay to play eighteen holes of golf at Angola, “the largest maximum-security prison in the country.”

From pinball prohibition in 1940s NYC to Dave & Buster’s, the rise and fall of the American arcade.

In search of the former boxing champ, who refuses to believe he has HIV.

The homeless population of New York City is higher than it’s been in decades. Nobody seems to notice.

The author dives to the wreck of the Mohawk, where his uncle died in 1935.

The stories of the 109 black men who have played quarterback in the NFL, from Fritz Pollard to Russell Wilson.

A study of the Mississippi River, its history, and efforts by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to hold it in place.

As the head of the CBF, Ricardo Teixera rules Brazilian futebol from the top down, controlling everything from the value of championships to broadcast rights. He needs the pull off a flawless 2014 World Cup in order to set the stage for being elected FIFA’s president, but there’s one hitch; the trail of bribes and scandals he has left in his wake.

Whenever you want him to go on the record, Teixeira shushes you and raises a finger to his lips.  He addresses men and women alike as “meu amor,” with an exaggerated Rio accent. “Meu amor, it’s all been said about me – that I smuggled goods in the Brazilian national team’s airplane, that there’s been dirty dealing in the World Cup, all those investigations into Nike and the CBF."

Translated from the original Portugese.

The anatomy of a 1930 epidemic that wasn’t:

Was parrot fever really something to worry about? Reading the newspaper, it was hard to say. “not contagious in man,” the Times announced. “Highly contagious,” the Washington Post said. Who knew? Nobody had ever heard of it before. It lurked in American homes. It came from afar. It was invisible. It might kill you. It made a very good story. In the late hours of January 8th, editors at the Los Angeles Times decided to put it on the front page: “two women and man in Annapolis believed to have 'parrot fever.'"

How a major American company helped bring Charles Taylor to power in Liberia.

Creating, and then attempting to dismantle, a fake persona based on a man who died in 1984.

A 58-year-old diabetic and his team of amateur rugby players attempt to qualify for the 1984 Summer Olympics in rowing.

Maybe Clinton isn’t a “good candidate,” as political junkies like to say. But that might not matter in 2016.

He was the world’s foremost collector of presidential memorabilia, an outsider with a pathological need to fit in. He was also a thief.

The story of Bowe Bergdahl, a soldier who walked off his base in Afghanistan only to be captured by the Taliban.

How Indians with the surname Patel came to own 1/3 of the motels in America.

A look at what it takes to protect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he’s in New York City.

On two gay men in Pennsylvania who tried, and failed, to build a commune of their own.

Searching for the line between courage and humility on an expedition to Cirque of the Unclimbables, a remote ring of perfect rock-climbing mountains in Canada.