The author takes a trip to HempCon with her anxious, insomniac, ultra-Orthodox Jewish mother.

“The patron saint of adult thumb-suckers is a 65-year-old Long Island salesman who looks strikingly like Hunter S. Thompson, down to the tinted aviator sunglasses and bald spot.”

“Rio is about far more than Phelps adding to his legacy. It’s the next step toward achieving the same peace and balance on land as he’s had in the water.”

The fire department working a desolate New Mexico mesa is made up of 15 anarchists and recluses and led by a friendly giant whose job is to be an administrator in a place that defies administration.

When Larycia Hawkins, the first black woman to receive tenure at Wheaton College, made a symbolic gesture of support for Muslims, the evangelical college became divided over what intellectual freedom on its campus really meant.

“Oh God, everybody hates Jane Austen. They don’t have the balls to say it.”

Dr. Elisabeth Targ became famous for running scientific experiments that appeared to prove the healing power of faith. Then she got sick and became a test subject herself.

The origin story of the C.I.A.’s covert drone war, which began with the 2004 killing of a Pashtun militant, the result of a secret deal for access to Pakistani airspace.

“Dan Seavey stepped ashore the docks of Grand Haven, Michigan, armed with two of the most dangerous weapons known to man: booze and bad intentions.” The story of the early 20th century’s fiercest Great Lakes pirate.

Montaous Walton couldn’t throw, catch or hit. But he wanted to be a ballplayer. And with the help of the internet, the media, and an ambitious young agent, that’s what he briefly became.

An interview with the artchitects responsible for Stuttgart’s train station, Hamburg’s concert house and Berlin’s airport, three projects “currently competing to be seen as the country’s most disastrous.”

“You know a storm is going to be bad, people in Oklahoma will tell you, when Gary England removes his jacket.” A profile of a meteorologist who has worked Tornado Alley for more than 40 years.

Cassie Chadwick pulled her first con in 1870, at the age of 13. Over the next 30 years, she would scam her way to $633,000, about $16.5 million in today’s dollars.

One man's transition from military to civilian life.

Previously: Eli Saslow on the Longform Podcast.

Why Parks Middle School decided to cheat.

In 1984, Jacqui met Bob Lambert at an animal-rights protest. They fell in love, had a son. Then Bob disappeared. It would take 25 years for Jacqui to learn that he had been working undercover.

“I did a few days on Franco’s As I Lay Dying, and the vibe on the set was very heavy and serious. The only thing I can equate it to is tripping with a bunch of your friends.”

Jamie Smith said he was a co-founder of Blackwater and a former CIA officer. He appeared on cable news as a counterterrorism expert and he received millions in goverment contracts to train personnel. The money was real. The resume wasn’t.

Javier Flores had hopes of a last-minute change in policy that would allow him to stay in Ohio with his wife and four kids, where he had a good job, a house, paid taxes. It didn’t come.

Feeling abandoned by America, families fight to save their children from ISIS.

A trip to the South African Million Dollar Pigeon Race.

“I probably am mellowing. I’m happy about that. I was a pretty angry young man, but if I were angry now, it’d be like, What the fuck is my problem? I’ve got a really terrific life. It’s so rare to be an artist in my position.”

Inside Zappos as it transitions to something called a “Teal organization” that involves no managers and what amounts scouting merit badges and something called “People Points.”

They were raised Hasidic in Brooklyn. Now Abe Zeines and Meir Hurwitz live a decadent, booze-filled life in Puerto Rico. They are in their early 30s and rich enough to retire, while Wall Street is busy adopting the shady loan scheme they pioneered.

Fuzzy memories of a house overlooking the Sunset Strip that played host to a generation of comics—including Sam Kinison, Andrew Dice Clay, and Robin Williams—launching dozens of careers and about as many drug problems.