longreads

The Great Afghan Bank Heist Poring over stacks of documents, investigators at the American Embassy in Kabul have pinpointed dozens of instances in which Kabul Bank executives may have bribed Afghan officials, including a successful bid to hold the contract to process the salaries that the government pays its employees each month—approximately seventy-five million dollars. […]

Why Reality Shows Failed on Russian TV For the Russian version of “The Apprentice,” Vladimir Potanin, a metals oligarch worth more than $10 billion, was recruited to be the boss choosing between the candidates competing for the dream job. Potanin goaded, teased and tortured the candidates as they went through increasingly difficult challenges. The show […]

Show the Monster: Guillermo del Toro’s Quest To Get Amazing Creatures Onscreen The size of the collection was disconcerting; it was as if the 40-Year-Old Virgin had been handed a three-million-dollar decorating budget. Del Toro owned more than five thousand comic books and several puppets of Nosferatu. On a shelf, a posed plastic figurine of […]

Steven Slater’s Landing When an irate female passenger cursed him out after their plane arrived at JFK, the then-38-year-old JetBlue flight attendant with twenty years in the flying business grabbed two cans of beer off the beverage cart, activated the emergency-escape chute, and promptly exited the aircraft, his job, and much of his former life. […]

I Was Teenage Hockey Message Board Jailbait Have you ever been caught in a lie? Or caught stealing or speeding or cheating? Maybe you’ve known the impossible weight of the hand on your shoulder, the blinding twirl of the lights in your rearview mirror, the razor-sharp voice of your teacher or wife. Maybe you’ve felt […]