“The only thing I’m able to conclude after my trip here is that it’s incredibly difficult for a poor country to go about getting un-poor.”

On driving (and walking) in the Middle East – from Syria to Lebanon, across Saudi Arabia to Dammam, in a taxi through war-torn Beirut.

On the online mug shot industry, which posts mug shots of anyone arrested (regardless of conviction) and charges $30 to $400 to have the photo removed.

An inteview with the Saturday Night Live producer.

Previously: The Longform Guide to SNL.

In Harpersville, Alabama, a traffic violation can lead to months in jail and a never-ending stint in a work-release program – what some refer to as a modern-day debtors’ prison.

After a final film, Kevin Smith is going to retire to a life of podcasting and speaking tours. Or so he says.

What happens in the classroom when a state begins to evaluate all teachers, at every grade level, based on how well they “grow” their students’ test scores? Colorado is about to find out.

You get steeped in this stuff as a kid, even if some part of you was always skeptical, it's hard to lose the residual sense that everything unfolding in the world—from natural disasters to commerce and geopolitics—signals some approaching doomsday.

On Silvio Berlusconi’s hedonism.

Berlusconi is Italy’s waning Hugh Hefner, alternately reviled and admired for his loyalty to his own appetites—except that he’s supposed to be running the country.

An attempt to sort out whether Vick is truly a changed man or simply a very gifted football player who was bound to be forgiven.

The early days of electronic spreadsheets and how the tool transformed business.

Christopher Clayton Hutton hatched a plan to deliver Monopoly boards to British prisoners of war. The games were advertised as a diversion, but really they offered a way out.

Three years ago, Shell spent millions to send a colossal oil rig to drill in the remote seas of the Arctic. But the Arctic had other plans.

“The U.S. patent code was never meant to cover your genes, your cells, your blood, or the marrow in your bones. But it does. And the worst thing is, it’s too late for you to do anything about it. You’ve already been sold.”

How Billy Walters, the world’s most successful gambler, keeps winning.

One day you’re teaching yourself to play the piano in hotel lobbies, the next you’re contributing a song to a David Lynch soundtrack.

Paleram Chauhan, a 52-year-old Indian farmer, was shot dead during the summer of 2013. The reason: his opposition to a gang of criminals stealing his village’s sand to sell on the black market.

The murder of a 34-year-old by a wig-wearing figure traces back to meth, an FBI sting and a former municipal judge who once sent a live copperhead snake to a foe through the U.S. mail.

A man felt wronged by his ex-girlfriend, a video game designer. So he published a 9,425-word online screed with “each component designed to be as damaging to [her] as possible.” It sparked the online fire known as “Gamergate.”

For days I've been slogging through a rain-soaked jungle in Indonesian New Guinea, on a quest to visit members of the Korowai tribe, among the last people on earth to practice cannibalism.

“Amazon has done a great job,” Jobs said. “We’re going to stand on their shoulders and go a little bit farther.” Or they were planning to stand on Amazon’s neck and press down hard.

Las Vegas casinos operating in Macau rely on “junkets” to bring in the gambling elite, but the money and murder for hire trails lead straight to the Triads.

The Columbia shuttle was to be a revolution for NASA. But a year before its first launch, the shuttle was several years behind schedule, had cost $1 billion, and wasn’t guaranteed to ever get off the ground.

How HBO went from sitcoms starring Delta Burke and O.J. Simpson to The Wire. The view from a former HBO employee who witnessed the channel’s rise to prominence firsthand.