How Hilary Clinton carefully negotiated blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng’s freedom, and proved herself to be a tenacious Secretary of State. “By the time the American diplomats acknowledged what had happened and went back to cut a new deal for Chen, the Chinese were in no mood to talk. In the meantime, Clinton herself was […]
Tag: longreads
What’s wrong with the crime stats in Baltimore? “The Wire” creator David Simon on how to fix them, and how beat reporting is necessary to understand the problem: So if you’ve read this far, and you understand the actual dynamic in play, you’re probably saying to yourself: What’s the solution? In the past, the detectives […]
In 2007, Eric Fair wrote an article in the Washington Post describing his experience as an interrogator in Iraq. He has had trouble finding a way to move on. I tell my professor I am sick. I put away verb charts, participles, and lexicons, board a train for Washington, D.C., and meet with Department of […]
A man with hypochondria attempts to understand his disorder: Eleven years ago, when he was still a medical resident at Columbia University, Fallon was asked to help a man who was convinced, despite medical results to the contrary, that he was saddled with a brain tumor. ‘He tried Prozac, and it made a dramatic change,’ […]
A startup keeps searching for its winning formula: While their neighbors toiled away, building unglamorous businesses, Justin.tv’s March 19, 2007, launch became an immediate sensation. The San Francisco Chronicle did a front-page story. Ann Curry, in an excruciating Today show interview, lectured Kan. “Fame, I have to tell you, Justin, has a price,” she said. […]
There are roughly 7,000 languages in the world, but 78 percent of the world’s population only speaks the 85 largest languages. Thousands of languages are on the edge of disappearing. After dinner Nimasow disappeared for a moment and came back with a soiled white cotton cloth, which he unfolded by the flickering light of the […]
A lost weekend, or several weeks, with Fiona Apple: A week later, my phone beeped. It was a heavily pixelated video. She was wearing glasses, looking straight at me: ‘Hi, Dan. It’s Fiona. [She moves the camera to her dog.] This is Janet. [She moves it back.] Um, are you coming out here tomorrow? Um, […]
[Fiction] A family prepares for their father’s business trip: Their Da was going away again, that’s all it was. Both boys had said nothing about it, but were awake at five and thumping downstairs and straight out to the garden, Jimbo still wearing pajamas and Shawn in yesterday’s clothes, probably no underpants—some objection he had […]
Avi Rubin, a 44-year-old computer science professor at Johns Hopkins, is obsessed with the math behind Texas Hold ‘em: When he began studying poker, Rubin frequently thought in terms of how a computer might model the game. Several disciplines were applicable—game theory, expert systems, machine learning, combinatorics. The latter is a branch of mathematics concerned […]
A look at the complicated afterlife of James Brown, and the battle over his estate among children he did, and did not, acknowledge: Yet Mr. Brown was not wholly unprepared to die, either. Several years earlier, in August 2000, he’d drawn up a will in which he bequeathed his ‘personal and household effects’—his linens and […]
How Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina is using technology and advice from high-profile mentors to prepare for November: The day after Jim Messina quit his job as White House deputy chief of staff last January, he caught a plane to Los Angeles, paid a brief visit to his girlfriend, and then commenced what may be […]
This summer marks the 45th anniversary of “the Summer of Love” in San Francisco. A look at the movers and shakers in Haight-Ashbury in 1967: Joplin’s creative epiphany occurred after a friend of Getz’s gave her acid for the first time—slipping it into her cold duck—and they went to the Fillmore to hear Otis Redding. […]
How Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, became a global, multibillion-dollar drug trafficking business: Known as El Chapo for his short, stocky frame, Guzmán is 55, which in narco-years is about 150. He is a quasi-mythical figure in Mexico, the subject of countless ballads, who has outlived enemies and accomplices alike, defying […]
How rhetoric from an evangelist talk-show host led to the resignation Mitt Romney’s openly gay national-security spokesman: Fischer’s attack against Grenell started on Friday, April 20th, with a post on Twitter. ‘Romney picks out & loud gay as a spokesman,’ he tweeted, soon after learning of the hire. ‘If personnel is policy, his message to […]
Over the last four decades, at least 18 women have disappeared from British Columbia’s Highway 16. Inside the investigation: In testimony to B.C.’s Missing Women Commission of Inquiry—formed in 2010, mainly to investigate why it took law enforcement so long to catch Willie “the Pig Farmer” Pickton, a serial killer who preyed on Vancouver women […]
A new lab-brewed drug epidemic has law-enforcement officials scrambling to contain it The last four decades have seen plenty of whipped-up hysteria about various fad intoxicants of the moment. But the fear generated by bath salts seems well earned. Dr. Mark Ryan, director at the Louisiana Poison Center, called bath salts ‘the worst drug’ he […]
Bill Gates and George Soros are handing out billions, but there are downsides to foundation giving: The new focus on metrics has brought with it a new breed of nonprofit and for-profit partnerships. Foundations such as the Omidyar Network, established in 2004 by eBay’s founder, Pierre Omidyar, provide both investments in for-profit companies and charitable […]
The demolition of the Cabrini-Green housing project in Chicago was supposed to open up new opportunities for low-income families. But the community has disappeared: The fifteen-story high-rise was known by its address, 1230 N. Burling. Already stripped of every window, door, appliance, and cabinet, the monolith was like a giant dresser without drawers. The teeth tore […]
Musician Jim White on Knoxville, and how Cormac McCarthy saved his life: In my left coat pocket is a dog-eared copy of Cormac McCarthy’s novel Suttree, which happens to be set here in Knoxville way back in the ’50s. I’m not much of a planner, so to some extent or another (depending on your take […]
Twenty years later, how Michael, Magic and the NBA’s best players sought to regain U.S. dominance in Olympic basketball: Nathaniel Butler (official NBA photographer): We were sitting on the baseline. Magic is backing a guy down, and the guy on defense is yelling at his bench, “Now! Now!” And on the bench, one guy’s pulling […]
An author meets a full-time gambler at the racetracks, who later ends up becoming his roommate: The Scholar, the Human Computer, and I were interested in a horse named Keys to Astro. According to The Scholar’s speed figures, Keys to Astro was two or three lengths faster than the rest of the field. A horse […]
Life as a mob boss’s girlfriend: By the early 1990s, Stanley began to crack under the years of control and psychological domination. She and Bulger were arguing constantly, sometimes violently, at home and in public. Once, at a wedding party, Teresa was approached by Bulger’s partner, Flemmi, who said, ‘Teresa, I know you and Jimmy […]
On June 10, 1912, a family was brutally murdered in a small Iowa town. The murders remain unsolved: The Moores were not discovered until several hours later, when a neighbor, worried by the absence of any sign of life in the normally boisterous household, telephoned Joe’s brother, Ross, and asked him to investigate. Ross found […]
How two comic-book artists created the characters beloved by kids during the 1980s and ’90s. The original turtles weren’t so cuddly: The original Mirage comic book really wasn’t made for youngsters. The Turtles diced up enemies while spouting the occasional curse word, and one of the Turtles’ allies was hockey mask-wearing vigilante Casey Jones, who […]
Experiencing firsthand the boredom that overtakes the courtroom during the perjury retrial of the seven-time Cy Young winner: As far as jury duty goes, you might think the perjury trial of the most decorated pitcher in baseball history would be the kind of blockbuster assignment you tell your grandchildren about. But if you’re enough of […]
Japanese-pop star Hatsune Miku has millions of YouTube hits, sells tickets to her concerts at $76 a pop and has adoring fans from all around the world. She’s also not human: Created by Crypton Future Media, Miku is the most popular avatar created to sell Vocaloid 2, the singing synthesizer application originally developed by Yamaha. […]
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