Adventures in public speaking.

Inside the Quidditch World Cup.

Kevin Fulton, a spy planted in the IRA, thought he was dead when he faced interrogation by a notorious IRA enforcer. But, it turned out, the enforcer was also an agent. How British intelligence undermined the IRA.

The latest WikiLeaks unveiling has exposed more than 250,000 sensitive messages from American diplomats. Among the revelations: the plan for a unified Korea, the Chinese government’s hacking strategy, and negotiations with countries for housing Gitmo detainees.

What Egypt learned from the students who overthrew Milosevic. “The Serbs are not the usual highly paid consultants in suits from wealthy countries; they look more like, well, cocky students. They bring a cowboy swagger. They radiate success. Everyone they teach wants to do what the Serbs did.”

The trouble with the all-but-obligatory networking site, “an Escher staircase masquerading as a career ladder.”

The country has become repressive in a way that it has not been since the Cultural Revolution. What does its darkening political climate—and growing belligerence—mean for the United States?

An essay on wielding the scythe.

The Estonia was carrying 989 passengers when it sank in 30-foot seas on its way across the Baltic in September 1994. More than 850 lost their lives. The ones who survived acted quickly and remained calm.

Scenes from the California drought.

The Wikipedia origin story.

A father, his dying son, and the quest to make the most profound video game ever.

When she died in 1952, author Margaret Wise Brown left the rights to Goodnight Moon to a nine-year-old neighbor named Albert Clarke. The book became a classic. Clarke, living entirely off the royalties, became a deadbeat.

Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry—infiltrating the national oil company, selling stolen fuel on the black market and engaging in open war with the military.

A profile.

An interview with Allee Willis, the late songwriter behind Earth Wind & Fire’s “September” and the Friends theme song, on creating the world you want to live and work in and throwing virtual parties.

Covid-19 has cemented the e-commerce giant’s hold on the economy — but it has also spurred employees all around the country to organize.

How did the most wanted man in America, the serial bomber behind the Atlanta Olympics explosion, survive for five years in the North Carolina woods? And was he helped?

Rebellious teens on the Sunset Strip.

The volcanic ash cloud from Eyjafjallajokull has caused travel chaos and misery. But we were lucky. An eruption in the future could wipe out the human race.

Twenty years ago my hometown made national headlines when the local college staged an internationally acclaimed play about gay men and the AIDS crisis. The people I grew up with are still feeling the aftershocks.

For 45 years, , Harmony Audio Video, has been my dad’s life: the reason he left home early every day, the reason he was chronically late to pick me up from school, the reason he didn’t take a single vacation for 25 years.

The writer and his oldest friends reunited to mourn the ones they lost—and honor the time they have left.

The Grateful Dead’s afterlife.

Reposted after it was pulled by The Atlantic:
How the little known $50/bottle champagne Antique Gold became the $300/bottle Armand de Brignac that Jay-Z “happened upon in a wine shop” and then featured in a video.