Trapped

The plan was ambitious but simple: Build a 9.5-mile sewer tunnel hundreds of feet below the ocean floor to help clean up Boston Harbor. But 10 years ago this summer, five divers went deep, deep into the project for one final step — with deadly results. Their harrowing story has never been told, until now.

Source: Boston Globe
Published: Aug 9, 2009
Length: 21 minutes (5,411 words)

Last Temptation

An interview with Wendell Potter

Published: Aug 1, 2009
Length: 20 minutes (5,184 words)

The Untouchable

Can a good mayor amass too much power?

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Aug 24, 2009
Length: 43 minutes (10,770 words)

Max at Sea

Max knew that a bunk bed was the perfect structure to use when building an indoor fort. First of all, bunk beds have a roof, and a roof is essential if you’re going to have an observation tower. And you need an observation tower if you’re going to spot invading armies before they breach your walls and overtake your kingdom. Anyone without a bunk bed would have a much harder time maintaining a security perimeter, and if you can’t do that you don’t stand a chance. (Fiction)

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Aug 24, 2009
Length: 30 minutes (7,506 words)

Can Game Theory Predict When Iran Will Get the Bomb?

Is Iran going to build a bomb?

Published: Aug 12, 2009
Length: 19 minutes (4,842 words)

Secrets of Magus

Deborah Baron, a screenwriter in Los Angeles, where Ricky Jay lives, once invited him to a New Year’s Eve dinner party at her home. About a dozen other people attended. Well past midnight, everyone gathered around a coffee table as Jay, at Baron’s request, did closeup card magic. When he had performed several dazzling illusions and seemed ready to retire, a guest named Mort said, “Come on, Ricky. Why don’t you do something truly amazing?” Baron recalls that at that moment “the look in Ricky’s eyes was, like, ‘Mort—you have just fucked with the wrong person.’ ”

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Apr 5, 1993
Length: 59 minutes (14,902 words)

The End of Mystery

When a helicopter goes down, the men on the ground get to work. From the wreckage of torn metal, black boxes, and lifeless bodies, a model of what went wrong rises.

Source: Esquire
Published: Sep 1, 2009
Length: 24 minutes (6,035 words)

Steve Jobs: The man who polished Apple

Chief executive of Apple Inc and owner of Jackling House changed the world and cheated death. So why the paranoia?

Published: Aug 16, 2009
Length: 17 minutes (4,315 words)

Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle

Obama sips it. Paris Hilton loves it. Mary J. Blige won’t sing without it. How did a plastic water bottle, imported from a military dictatorship thousands of miles away, become the epitome of cool?

Source: Mother Jones
Published: Sep 1, 2009
Length: 15 minutes (3,943 words)

A Third Man

His letter to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was meant to help his father. But it became a very different case

Source: Washington Post
Published: Aug 16, 2009
Length: 9 minutes (2,463 words)