In 2009, Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl was captured in Afghanistan after deciding to walk off his base. A look at why he left, and the complications surrounding his rescue: Within an hour, two F-18s were circling overhead. Afghan forces passed along intelligence that a U.S. soldier had been captured by the Taliban. By that […]
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Obama famously said he wanted a “team of rivals” in his Cabinet. Why that never happened: The way Cabinet officers relate personally to the president is—no surprise—often the crucial factor in their success or failure. Colin Powell had a worldwide profile and a higher approval rating than George W. Bush, and partly for those very […]
Tracing a years-long Internet hoax back to its creator, a 22-year-old woman in Ohio: On the evening of May 13, Mother’s Day, a Canadian woman named Dana Dirr was hit head-on while driving to the Saskatchewan hospital where she worked as a trauma surgeon. She was 35 weeks pregnant, but determined to work until the […]
The secret history of sexual abuse inside New York’s Horace Mann School: Speaking calmly and staring into the flames, he told us that when he was in eighth grade, Wright sexually assaulted him. ‘And not just me,’ he added. ‘There were others.’ First Wright befriended him, he said. Then he molested him. Then he pretended […]
How a semiliterate University of Memphis football player educated himself while facing countless obstacles: You can’t hide for long in college when you’re semiliterate. But somehow Mr. Cathey slipped through his freshman year with just under a C average, taking classes like elementary algebra and music appreciation. Then he saw the syllabus for HIST 2010: […]
Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, a longtime Disney fan, finally goes to Disneyland. The new appreciation of history begins with the responsibility in the hands of a man I trust, Walt Disney. In Disneyland he has proven again that the first function of architecture is to make men over make them wish to go on […]
[Fiction, 2012 Pen/O. Henry Winner] A son recalls an exiled life with his father, mother, and a maid: At the Magda Marina, he spent his time sunbathing and reading fat books: one on the Suez Crisis, one a biography of our late king, with his portrait on the cover. Whenever Father acquired a new book […]
[Not single-page] A look back at one of Apple’s most beloved failures, starting with a purchase of the original Newton on eBay: Once I’d put four AAA batteries and a watch-battery backup into the MessagePad for the first time, powering it up felt like bringing it out of cryogenic suspension. Newtons, it turns out, begin […]
A blind journalist and his brother go to a rattlesnake roundup in central West Texas: We finally bolted for the nearest exit, heading past the coliseum’s fountain. Its gushing water, almost like a sizzle, was loud enough that it touched every corner of the room, though it failed to cool us to any degree. Then, […]
After retiring from the NFL, a large percentage football players find adjusting to real life a struggle: Terrell Owens hasn’t officially retired yet, and he already has blown the $80 million he earned during his career. Warren Sapp recently filed for bankruptcy. Former first-round picks Michael Bennett and William Joseph currently face federal charges of […]
The lead singer of Against Me!, married with a child, is now Laura Jane Grace. She speaks out about gender dysphoria, which left her uncomfortable in a male body for as long as she can remember: In retrospect, the lyrics are almost shockingly direct: If I could have chosen I would have been born a […]
How does the U.S. define what groups are terrorist organizations, and what groups are potential allies? Questions around the Mujahedin e Khalq (MEK) in Iran: The story of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, also known as the Mujahedin e Khalq (MEK), is all about the way image management can enable a diehard enemy to become […]
On the next Justin Bieber, 16-year-old Austin Mahone, and how pop stars are made: Last October, for instance, he was in Chicago and decided to go to Millennium Park with his mom. He tweeted this information, hoping to meet a few fans who were in the area, then pulled on a gray hooded sweatshirt and […]
A father recounts his family’s quest to diagnose a rare disease in their son: We discovered that my son inherited two different (thus-far-unique) mutations in the same gene—the NGLY1 gene—which encodes the enzyme N-glycanase 1. Consequently, he cannot make this enzyme. My son is the only human being known to lack this enzyme. Below, I’m […]
An investigation of sports’ biggest conspiracy theories, starting with the 1985 NBA draft: I believe in the fix. I believe in the hidden hand, that sports have a secret, redacted history. I believe that Game 6 of the 2002 NBA Western Conference Finals was a sham, that Spygate was a cover-up of a cover-up, that […]
An account of how hundreds of Taliban prisoners escaped from Kandahar’s Sarposa prison in Afghanistan through a tunnel in 2011: At 5 a.m., hours after Rahim and his cohorts passed directly beneath his office, the warden of Sarposa Prison, General Dastagir Mayar, was awakened. One of his guards stood in the doorway. The entire political […]
[Not single-page] Ten years after Ken Caminiti became the first prominent Major League Baseball player to confess to steroid use, a look at four players whose lives and careers were forever changed: The 1994 Fort Myers Miracle, a Class A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins, included four pitchers of similar attributes. They each threw righthanded, […]
Reexamining Vonnegut’s body of work as an adult: Rereading Slaughterhouse-Five taught me two things about the novel: how great it really is, and what it’s really about. It’s not about time travel and flying saucers, it’s about PTSD. Vonnegut never explicitly negates the former possibility, but the evidence for the latter is overwhelming once you […]
In 1982, 250 men, women and children were massacred in the village of Dos Erres in Guatemala. Two little boys were spared, and were the keys to an investigation into the coverup and subsequent fallout: In the summer of 2000, Oscar was living near Boston when he received a perplexing letter. A cousin in Zacapa […]
[Not single-page] A profile of Oliver Samwer and his web copycat factory in Berlin, which specializes in building knockoff websites inspired by growing American startups—then, sometimes, them back to the original company: The decision to copy a given business generally takes three hours to a couple of days; actually building the first version of the […]
Inside the group’s 50th anniversary reunion tour: How the legendary group fell apart and came back together, and how Brian Wilson gets along with his old bandmates: The vibe in Burbank is collegial, but each Beach Boy is locked into his own orbit. Wilson and Love tend to communicate through the musical directors they’ve retained […]
A look at the Obama Administration’s process for approving drone strikes on Al Qaeda suspects. Insiders say President Obama is personally approving the final decisions: President Obama, overseeing the regular Tuesday counterterrorism meeting of two dozen security officials in the White House Situation Room, took a moment to study the faces. It was Jan. 19, […]
Why was New York Times CEO Janet Robinson fired? A look inside the political battles and financial troubles that led Arthur Sulzberger to let Robinson go (with a $24 million exit package): Interviews with more than 30 people who are intimately familiar with different aspects of the Times’ business (none but a spokesperson would speak […]
Once an enemy of the U.S., Vietnam is growing as a country, and has become a key ally “as a counter to China’s rising power”: Nothing better illustrates the Vietnamese desire to be a major player in the region than the country’s recent purchase of six state-of-the-art Kilo-class submarines from Russia. A Western defense expert […]
[Fiction] A baby’s arrival stirs up difficult memories: I sat with the baby in the living room, setting her on a clean blanket. When I tired of watching her, I stretched out, resting my hand on her stomach. I fell asleep with the baby staring at me, her eyes wide open. In the morning, my […]
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