Embedded with an Afghan warlord:

This is a local insurgency, often with local causes: a corrupt district governor, predatory police, or abuses by the local militias, the arbakis.

Inside Give Kids the World Village, where the ice cream is unlimited, nightly tuck-ins from six-foot bunny rabbits are complimentary, and Santa Claus visits every Thursday.

“I know I learned to use my intelligence as a weapon to keep myself safe from racists, starting as a child, and suddenly it doesn’t feel like enough. The violence is like a puzzle with many moving parts, but the stakes are life and death.”

Searching for the mysterious tree kangaroo in one of the most remote places on Earth.

How one company is rethinking the business of sex toys.

“This is a story about the most magical, mystical sport on earth, and the Detroit lifer who improbably became its king. Also, it’s about an art heist.”

On January 13th, 2018, the residents of Hawaii picked up their phones to find a warning: a missile would be hitting the islands imminently. Here’s what people do when they think they only have 38 minutes left to live.

Vera Pratt moved to the island at age 70 hoping to find many years of happiness. Then she met “Psychic Angela” and her future got a whole lot more complicated.

The Permian Basin is ground zero for a billion-dollar surge of zombie oil wells.

A young paleontologist may have discovered a record of the most significant event in the history of life on Earth.

Jurors from the Emmett Till trial revisit the case 50 years later.

On the stories we tell ourselves about happiness and the indecent questions we ask women who decided not to become moms.

A legend hangs on.

A private investigator asks a magazine to write a puff piece on his business. The journalist finds a real story.

Two Houston performance artists faux-marry an oak. Controversy ensues about the live installation’s relationship to the gay marriage debate.

What the heck happened?

How two Jewish American political consultants helped create the world’s largest anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

A Texas con artist made millions promising prisoners’ families the thing they wanted most: to bring their children home.

Before The Jerky Boys and Longmont Potion Castle there was Mal Sharpe.

The first major interview with The Simpsons’ most prolific and legendary writer.

The historian Allen C. Guelzo believes that the Confederate general deserves a more compassionate reading.

How the government cleared the streets in advance of the 1988 Olympics.

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.”

The story of the attack that killed U.S. ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, told from the persepctive of the security agents there to protect him.

On the unlikely friendship between Nelson Algren and the young writer during the final years of Algren’s life.

It was June of 1980 when Nelson called me breathlessly from the highway.