A rookie competes in the World Elephant Polo Championships.

On being held hostage by Somali pirates.

On the uneasy relationship between magic and medicine.

Lessons from the last Swiss finishing school.

Unequal pay, harassment, or worse at the nation’s largest jewelry retailer.

Inside the fight for safe cannabis for all.

Tavi Gevinson talks.

The search for Syrian war criminals in Europe.

The search for Guns N’ Roses’ elusive guitarist.

In February, Jerusalem’s FC Beitar, the only soccer team in the Israeli Premier League to have never signed an Arab player, signed two Chechnyan Muslims, sparking national controversy and pitting the organization against their ultras fan club La Familia.

“Joe’s hand began to tingle, and he called the group together. The toxins would leave his system in 48 hours, he said. He’d be conscious the whole time.”

How the woman who brought Westboro Baptist to Twitter came to question the church’s beliefs.

Twelve-step programs treat alcohol and drugs according to the same principles. But heroin changes the way the brain works. If there’s a medication that treats heroin addiction, why aren’t we using it?

Humanity has 30 years to find out.

How Roger Ailes raised a ruckus in Putnam County, New York.

An excerpt from The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News–and Divided a Country.

From her deathbed, the author’s mother revealed a secret she had kept for 60 years: her true love was not his father, but a man named Angus Zahrt. On his ensuing search for the full story.

Text from the books and Foster Wallace’s corresponding annotations:

Along with all the Wittgenstein, Husserl and Borges, he read John Bradshaw, Willard Beecher, Neil Fiore, Andrew Weil, M. Scott Peck and Alice Miller. Carefully.

When Putin suggested to Obama that the White House and the Kremlin speak through an intermediary, he named who he thought was the obvious candidate: his friend Steven Seagal.

How the Mosley Motel, off U.S. 19 in Florida, became the temporary home to at least 27 families turned away from full shelters.

Inside the Vice President’s gamble on Donald Trump.

At 18, Katie Stubblefield lost her face. At 21, she became the youngest person in the U.S. to undergo the still experimental procedure to get a new one.

Two years ago, the climbing photographer known as Nathan Smith saw no way out, after struggling for years with gender-identity issues in the male-dominated outdoor industry. Then—slowly, bravely—Nikki introduced herself to the world.

On the people who will be sent back to a place they’ve never called home if DACA runs out.

From Southie to Santa Monica, a gangster romance on the run.

Will LaFever never felt right in the world. So he took to the Utah desert, barely making it out alive.