Longreads

This afternoon, President Obama plans to announce the nomination of Samantha Power for the post of Ambassador to the United Nations. (Power would replace the current U.N. Ambassador, Susan Rice;…

"I’m really good at selling drugs — like really good," Ragan said right before she climbed up the stairs to do a four-figure deal with one of her Manhattan clients. She wore blue…

Once upon a time a band set out to make a Christmas song. Not about snow or sleigh rides or mistletoe or miracles, but lost youth and ruined dreams. A song in which Christmas is as much the problem…

If you thought the official New York marathon statement about being cancelled was tone-deaf, just wait until you hear this — on video, no less: Gail McGovern, chief executive officer and…

It was always a silly rule. According to international basketball guidelines in place for decades, professionals from leagues all over the world could compete for their countries at the…

In 2010, The Village Voice produced a five-part series, the "NYPD Tapes," about a cop who secretly taped his fellow New York Police Department officers. Photography: Henry…

Whether they're seeking pleasure or meaning, more and more vacationers are experimenting with dangerous drugs from foreign cultures. Mountain ridge outside Doi Phu Kha National Park. On a hot,…

"I couldn’t draw any officers, so I started working on sergeants. I had nothing against sergeants but that’s all I could get and I went after them until finally I was told all I could attack were civilians and animals. But they even made zebras off limits to me because they had stripes. ... As much as I fought the Army while I was here, it wasn’t that the Army did me any harm. It did me good, taught me things about life and gave me freedom to create. The Army gave me an outlet for my work and it was great for me. because of my experiences. Guys I know that are in the most exciting work in the world still look back on their Army life as the happiest time of their lives."

Gil Scott-Heron is frequently called the “godfather of rap,” which is an epithet he doesn’t really care for. In 1968, when he was nineteen, he wrote a satirical spoken-word piece called “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” It was released on a very small label in 1970 and was probably heard of more than heard, but it had a following. It is the species of classic that sounds as subversive and intelligent now as it did when it was new, even though some of the references—Spiro Agnew, Natalie Wood, Roy Wilkins, Hooterville—have become dated.