Mo Pinel spent a career reshaping the ball’s inner core to harness the power of physics. He revolutionized the sport—and spared no critics along the way.

Pinch-hitting for an ailing Ted Kennedy, the then-candidate honors the Kennedy’s life of service and implores graduates to wed their lives to others:

Ted Kennedy often tells a story about the fifth anniversary celebration of the Peace Corps. He was there, and he asked one of the young Americans why he had chosen to volunteer. And the man replied, ‘Because it was the first time someone asked me to do something for my country.’ I don’t know how many of you have been asked that question, but after today, you have no excuses.

On the dangerous state of U.K. banks—“an existential threat to British democracy, a more serious one than terrorism, either external or internal”—and how it can be fixed.

Inside the attempt to turn a World War II-era antiaircraft deck (that its owner claims is an independent nation) into “the world’s first truly offshore, almost-anything-goes electronic data haven.”

When a marketing team found themselves burning out, they shifted their business focus to doing something about it. But if capitalism caused this problem, can capitalism fix it?

An organ transplant recipient cycles across the country to meet the people who gave him his heart.

As one blockmate after another fell ill, we tried to stay safe and care for one another. It wasn’t always enough.

A former first-string tackle considers the green zone as a war zone:

Just as football has evolved in accordance with the evolving business ethic of American society, so has it evolved in accordance with the changing strategic assumptions about war. The development (or rebirth) of the T-formation in football coincided almost exactly with the development of a new era of mobility and speed in warfare best exemplified in the Blitzkrieg tactics of the German armies in Europe in 1939-40. The T-formation soon overwhelmed the “Maginot Line” mentality of traditional football, based as it was on rigid lines and massive concentrations of defensive and offensive power.

On being gay in the military, three years before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:

A vast majority of those interviewed had been interrogated at least once, and what they described was nearly the same. They said those under suspicion of homosexuality suffer bright lights in their eyes and sometimes handcuffs on their wrists, warnings that their parents will be informed or their hometown newspapers called, threats that their stripes will be torn off and they will pushed through the gates of the base before a jeering crowd.

I remember when you were a little girl, you used to call yourself “peach-brown”. Peach represented your mother, brown represented your father, and together they made peach-brown, a perfect articulation at the time for what you were. The colors came from the crayons you matched to the skin of your parents, and although they were separate and didn’t mix together very well on paper, they were the best you had at the time. This silly little phrase represented what would become a lifelong struggle of coming into your own identity.

The Harvard Law professsor on billionaires, politics and Uber.

A profile of the writer behind “Deep Thoughts” on Saturday Night Live.

Grizzly Bear and the surprisingly crappy economics of indie rock stardom.

Tales of mayhem on the set of The Canyons.

The U.S. Department of Justice investigates the Blackwater founder’s new firm.

On the overstated effect of the Santa Ana winds on human behavior and the understated impact of climate change on LA’s seasons.

The fabled venue where the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, and Prince emerged.

A veteran with PTSD takes on the fighter jets that fly above his sanctuary on the Olympic Peninsula.