The mother of a child born with a deformed brain responds, heartbreakingly, to an academic study claiming that people are happier without kids.

Tony Judt on sex, the academy, and dating a graduate student while chairing NYU’s History Department.

A profile of Rahm Emanuel, written during his first congressional campaign in Illinois. Emanuel was running to fill the seat vacated by Rod Blagojevich.

Ten years ago, Esquire did a piece about Harvard Law grads who had eschewed their degrees. One of them was the late comedian.

On a book of photographs shot by Leni Riefenstahl in the 1950s and 1960s depicting an African tribe.

A quasi-oral history of the party that was JFK’s 1961 inauguration.

J.D. Salinger on the beaches on D-Day, marching through concentration camps, and in liberated Paris.

How the culture of academia helped Amy Bishop, a University of Alabama scientist who murdered colleagues during a faculty meeting, fall apart.

A roundtable on sexism in Hollywood and comedy.

The story of Jejoen Bontinck, a Belgian teen-ager who travelled to Syria to fight with radical Islamists.

How three friends and a team of frat brothers made a fortune smuggling people along the most heavily patrolled stretch of highway in Texas.

There’s software used across the country to predict future criminals. It’s racist.

Reince Priebus was about to go down as the most successful GOP chairman in party history. Then Trump happened.

At 33, Wendy Brown stole her daughter’s name, grabbed a pair of pom-poms, and went back to high school. Then she went to jail.

The results can be deadly.

Inside the chaotic race to build Elon Musk’s hyperloop.

The story of a newscaster’s suicide.

On a mysterious migrant in a San Diego hospital bed, and the thousands of families who hope that he’s theirs.

“These, I now know, are the details of how my mother died..:”

The period underwear giant struggles to live up to its corporate ideals.

Disillusioned with fine dining, one of the world’s great chefs took on fast food. It has been harder than he ever imagined.

He has been in the NBA for 50 years. He’s won nine championships. And he can’t walk away.

A profile of philosopher Timothy Morton, who wants humanity to give up some of its core beliefs.

Investigating the disappearance of a trans teen who hasn’t been seen since 2012.

How a teenage gamer in the hottest new esport, Overwatch, became a reluctant icon for South Korea’s feminist movement.