An oral history of the 2002 Western Conference finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings.

Previously: Jonathan Abrams on the Longform Podcast.

How America is trying to fight terrorism in Africa without doing any of the actual fighting.

Exploring the depths of the abalone black market.

Sixteen-year-old Kalief Browder was accused of taking a backpack. He spent the next three years on Rikers Island, without trial.

On the origin of the essay.

Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, who left Pro-Choice activism for born-again Christianity and a strange life of financial opportunism, died this week.

On the legal and practical details of the drone strikes that killed New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki and later, accidentally, his sixteen-year-old Colorado-born son.

On the skyrocketing number of Americans on disability—14 million at last count, with payouts topping those for food stamps and welfare combined—and what it means for the U.S. economy.

“Five years, four judges, six lawyers, $400,000 in attorney and expert fees and costs, a child yanked back and forth, [and] petty arguing.” Chronicling the slow end of one American marriage.

A profile of the writer.

Plus: An excerpt from McCann's new novel, TransAtlantic. (via Longform Fiction)

How a high-stakes poker game that started at Tobey Maguire’s house became part of a $100 million gambling and money-laundering operation orchestrated by the Russian mob.

Reg Smythe was the greatest British newspaper strip cartoonist of the 20th Century – and second only to Peanuts’ Charles Schulz on a global scale. So why don’t we treat him that way?

“I am talking here about a time when I began to doubt the premises of all the stories I had ever told myself, a common condition but one I found troubling.”

Convicted and facing jail time plus a crippling fine in Sweden, the founders of the torrent site The Pirate’s Bay have scattered across the world towards new lives: fatherhood in Laos, a junkie’s life in Phnom Penh, and start-up work in Berlin.

How “Count” Victor Lustig, one of America’s great con men, worked his scams.

How America’s first serial killer terrorized the city of Austin on Christmas Eve, 1885.

Welcome to Wakaliwood, where a resourceful producer in the slums of Kampala makes action movies like Who Killed Captain Alex? Uganda’s First Action Movie for about $200 apiece.

Thanks to a single court case, the state of Maryland is releasing almost 150 violent offenders who believed they would spend their life behind bars.

A dispatch from the campaign trail and a new understanding of America.

The story of the Refugee Olympic team.

A profile of the Carolina Panthers quarterback.

Firefighter Kevin Shea, one of the first responders on September 11, 2001, was “the survivor who couldn’t remember what no one else could forget.”

Baltimore’s state’s attorney gambled that prosecuting six officers for the death of Freddie Gray would help heal her city. She lost much more than just the case.