The hedge fund manager making a bet that Wall Street can solve the water crisis in the West.

“After 14 years I finally reported him. In the eyes of the law, my biggest mistake was not fearing him more.”

The eccentric inhabitants of the world’s largest rock—Giant Rock, a humongous boulder deep in the Mojave Desert.

The best-selling young novelist lay dead in a trash-strewn cottage on Ireland’s rugged coast for over a week before she was discovered.

The pandemic of violence against women, the threats online, and the harassment on the streets are ongoing. But women’s voices assumed an unprecedented power in 2014.

Squeamish though they might be about God, even the totally irreligious can find some comfort in praying.

Typee, the most popular book Melville published in his lifetime, was his memoir of Polynesia. Most of it was probably made up.

A weekend with the only person on Earth who can survive five venomous snakebites in 48 hours.

Ronnie O’Sullivan is the best snooker player in the world. He’s also the most tormented.

How a high-powered lawyer and a rough-edged private detective ended up at the center of the biggest, dirtiest scandal in Hollywood history.

Ethnicity and primary education in Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Part of Guernica’s ‘Writer’s Bloc’ series.

On a young Arnold Schwarzenegger and the body-building culture of Venice Beach in the 1970s.

A profile of the Mexican newsweekly, a “lone voice” in reporting on the narcos.

How a group of men with nicknames like “Emperor” and “Spear Carrier” tipped the balance in South Sudan’s fight for independence.

The rise and fall of Bernard von NotHaus, the creator of the most successful (and some say illegal) alternative currency in the U.S.

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

Hipsters vs. Hasids in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A skirmish over a bike lane becomes a battle for a neighborhood.

David Petraeus, father of the surge and the uncontested “most competitive” man in the military.

In post-Shock and Awe Baghdad, the relationship between a war reporter and his Iraqi guide falls apart.

An interview with cinematographer Harris Savides on the enduring appeal of the visual style of films shot in the 1970s.

The bloody, often surreal, fight for Kosovo’s independence was led by a man moonlighting as a roofer in Switzerland.

When Bob Dylan met Allen Ginsberg; a chapter from Sean Wilentz’s forthcoming Bob Dylan in America.

How misdirected incentives in the bewildering medical supply industry keep innovative, life-saving equipment from reaching hospitals.

The comeback of Marty Reisman, the most flamboyant figure in the history of table tennis, and the self-proclaimed greatest hardbat player ever.