Against all predictions, the Taliban took the Afghan capital in a matter of hours. This is the story of why and what came after, by a reporter and photographer who witnessed it all.

Enlightened is probably the sharpest satire of modern white-collar work since the original British version of The Office, and its skewering of this world intertwines with its portrait of individual personalities so deftly that you can’t separate them. Creator Mike White captures the unsettling blandness of office protocol, politics and jargon, from the chill that workers feel when Human Resources calls them out of the blue to the impressive-sounding word salad labels that the company gives to its departments and projects. (The experimental department to which the newly demoted Amy is assigned is called “Cogentiva.”)

How a Mossad agent’s desperate bid to jumpstart his career led to the exposure of two top Hezbollah plants.

A trip to the French island of Réunion to report on a bloody battle between surfers and sharks.

The story of Kokie’s, and its gentrifying Williamsburg neighborhood.

On the hundreds of corpses that go unindentified every year along the U.S.-Mexico border.

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

A case for why race has been the real story of the Obama presidency all along.

A story of regret and the contemporary art market.

Exploring the relationship between cats and the Internet in Japan.

A profile of Griselda Blanco, aka the “Black Widow,” who pioneered the cocaine trade in New York and Miami.

The strange existence of the accused Internet pirate as he battles the U.S. government.

Why is an anti-virus software giant in the Belizean jungle surrounded by  gang members?

The story of a rookie clinging to his dream, as told by his uncle.

Profiles of people who live in their car after losing almost everything during the Great Recession.

Meet Alan Chambers, former leader of Exodus International–a “pray the gay away” ministry.

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.

On the enduring appeal, both amateur and academic, of man vs. dinosaur.

Spending time with the residents of K6G, the only gay wing in the entire American penal system.

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

People have been having fun with nitrous oxide—often in the name of science—since its discovery more than 240 years ago.

It isn’t easy to find out the truth about the benefits of male circumcision.

In Guyana after the Jonestown massacre, with the survivors and the dead.