The events that led the writer to spend 60 days in jail.

The musicians of Mali find themselves in the middle of a civil war.

On the murder of a young Hasidic boy in Brooklyn.

The unlikely people who’ve turned to selling weed in the recession.

Looking for holes in the world’s nuclear security.

Fighting to the finish in the most dangerous region of Afghanistan.

In court and visiting prison with the parents of young Russian Nationalists who’ve killed.

Inside the attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

On office chairs.

In the 1950s and '60s, the distinctions between rank found blunt expression in chair design, naming and price point; Knoll, for example, produced "Executive," "Advanced Management," and "Basic Operational" chairs in the late 1970s. Recall the archetypal scenes where the boss, back to the door, protected by an exaggerated, double-spine headrest, slowly swivels around to meet the eyes of his waiting subordinate, impotent in a stationary four-legger.

On the ground with U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

In mountainous Wenzhou “the emperor is far away” and the freest of markets reign.

What one woman spends in a year.

What’s really happening in Kyrgyzstan.

How USAID workers are trained for work and danger in Afghanistan.

What exactly is going on politically in Thailand?

The story of the most secret underground society in Paris.

A teenage love triangle turns tragic in Pinellas Park, Florida.

A day in the life of a Brooklyn laundromat.

How sex scandals have made Silvio Berlusconi even more powerful in Italy.

A trip to the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles.

The story behind the fall of Saddam’s statue in Baghdad.

Inside a school that trains students in an ancient rite: the taking of ayahuasca.

Treasure hunters still scour Lower Silesia in search of legendary wartime riches.

What happened when a plane full of marijuana crashed in Yosemite Park.

Syrian orphans become child laborers in Turkey.