A 12,000-word profile of recently departed Brazilian President Luiz Inácio da Silva, the “most successful politician of his time.”

Early last year, 10 churches were torched in East Texas. The culprits? Two Baptist teens having a crisis of faith.

An interview with Heart guitarist and film composer Nancy Wilson.

How automated ‘execution algorithms’ are taking the world’s markets on a wild ride that few economists can even understand, much less control.

A profile of the hard-living, cop-dodging artist Dash Snow, published two years before his death of an overdose.

An essay on poetry and madness.

People still think of poets as an odd bunch, as you’ll know if you’ve been introduced as one at a wedding. Some poets spotlight this conception by saying otherworldly things, playing up afflictions and dramas, and otherwise hinting that they might be visionaries. In the past few centuries, of course, the standard picture of psychopathology has changed a great deal. But as it’s often invoked, the idea of the mad poet preserves, in fossil form, a stubbornly outdated and incomplete image of madness. Modern psychiatry and neuroscience have supplanted this image almost everywhere else.

What it means to become a superpower while three quarters of the population lives on less than fifty cents per day—four scenes from India in transition.

A report from the Central African Republic, where "acts of extraordinary cruelty have become commonplace."

The making and near unmaking of Paul Thomas Anderson’s breakout film.

A professor of sociology at Columbia reckons with her father’s relationship with Adolf Eichmann.

The theme-park chain where kids learn to pilot a plane, pay taxes, and pretend to be adults.

Seth Rogen, Amy Pascal, and the inside story of Sony’s hacking saga.

Truancy is punishable by fines, probation, and in some cases throwing parents in prison. Does any of that really keep kids in school?

Many people hoped that this would be the second book she’d publish.

Notes from a never-finished biography of the neurologist, humanist and writer.

The author visits City of Refuge in Pahokee, Florida, a community of more than 100 registered sex offenders.

On stolen bicycles, “a solvent in America’s underground economy, a currency in the world of drug addicts and petty thieves.”

How the U.S. lost out on iPhone work.

After two people are found dead in Yellowstone National Park, a team of investigators tracks down the unlikely culprit: a grizzly bear.

On fashion, gender, a finding oneself in a pair of drop-crotch pants.

On Marilyn Monroe and the pains of post-war America.

George Wright spent more time on the lam, 41 years, than any fugitive in American history. Last fall, after being caught in a rural Portuguese village, he told his story.

A year with Major Steve Beck as he takes on the most difficult duty of his career: casualty notification.

“Being Justin Bieber means having an endless number of T-shirts to destroy.” A profile of the pop star just after his 18th birthday.

A profile of the Hollywood star-maker behind Vanna White, Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy.