Stories that stay with you

The Golden Age of White Collar Crime

Elite lawbreaking is out of control. This is the grotesque story of an existential threat to American society.

Michael Hobbes

Trump Got His Wall, After All

A small but dedicated crew of hardliners has created bureaucratic barriers that are far harder to overcome than any hunk of concrete on the southern border.

Rachel Morris

What If The World Treated The U.S. Like a Rogue State

Under Trump, the United States is capsizing the climate, emboldening dictators and trashing diplomatic norms. In the corridors of power in Brussels, Paris and Berlin, the idea of sanctions sounds less outlandish by the day.

Samanth Subramanian

Behold, The Millennial Nuns

More young women are being called to the religious life than at any point in the past 50 years. Eve Fairbanks explains what millennial nuns are searching for.

Eve Fairbanks

F. Lee Bailey

O.J. Simpson's former attorney may be barred from practicing law in several states, but absolutely no one can stop him from roasting his enemies.

By Wil S. Hylton

Parkland Is Tearing Itself Apart

And the fight within the still-grieving community has nothing to do with gun control.

By Kathryn Joyce

The Exceptional Life of Paul Coates

A conversation with the longtime publisher and former Black Panther whose son Ta-Nehisi just so happens to be America's most influential writer.

By Wil S. Hylton

The Creeping Capitalist Takeover of Higher Education

Just a few years ago, universities had a chance to make a quality education affordable for everyone. Here's the little-known and absolutely infuriating history of what they did instead.

A report by Kevin Carey

The Secret Baby Catchers of Alabama

They set up shop in hotel rooms, sterile Airbnbs and secondhand RVs just over the state line, so that women can give birth on their own terms.

By Rebecca Grant

“I looked around at our whole family, and the kids running around, and I thought, ‘I’m never going to have this,’ and I started to cry.”

Together Alone

The epidemic of gay loneliness.

By Michael Hobbes

Suicide essay clancy highlinehpbanner resize

I’m Still Here

Clancy Martin's moving behind-the-scenes look at life inside a psych ward after another one of his suicide attempts.

By Clancy Martin

The Best Way To Save People From Suicide

A deep exploration of the Motto method, the one intervention that has dramatically reduced suicide deaths.

By Jason Cherkis

Is Tom Perez Up For the Fight?

The Democratic National Committee chair on whether Trump is a racist, why the DNC is open to donations from fossil fuel companies and why he thinks his party still has a shot at the Senate.

By Wil S. Hylton

Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong

For decades, the medical community has ignored mountains of evidence to wage a cruel and futile war on fat people, poisoning public perception and ruining millions of lives.

It’s time for a new paradigm.

By Michael Hobbes

“Do you have any idea how much we earn off migrants? Drugs are less profitable.”

The 21st Century Gold Rush

How the refugee crisis is changing the world economy.

By Malia Politzer and Emily Kassie

The Slow, Highly Provisional Evolution of Glenn Greenwald

He believes the Democrats are on the verge of collapse, the media is a joke and the security state is turning us all into mini-imperialists. But he finally admits that there might be something to this Russia business.

By Wil S. Hylton

Inhuman Resources

Mike Picarella wanted to protect a co-worker from humiliating sexual harassment. He didn't expect his own life to be destroyed in the process

By David Dayen

Understanding Harvey

Power alone does not explain the abuses of famous men.

By Emily Yoffe

When the Punishment Feels Like a Crime

Brock Turner's twisted legacy And Michele Dauber's relentless pursuit of justice.

By Julia Ioffe

“If you wear a Trump hat in many places, you might as well be wearing a swastika.”

My Journey to the Center of the Alt-Right

I went to a white nationalist ethnostate in Indiana. I got bounced from a secret meeting in D.C. I spent weeks figuring out how hate gurgles up from the nastiest recesses of the Internet. And I’m sorry to report that unconscionable racists will be a force in American politics well beyond November 8.

By Luke O’Brien

The Unlikely Upside of Cape Town's Drought

What are human beings capable of when it feels as if the world is about to end?

By Eve Fairbanks

Mike Pence’s Man in the Swamp

The vice president’s trusted chief of staff is young, handsome, talented and rich. He’s also got some skeletons.

By Vicky Ward

Jerry and Marge Go Large

Gaming the lottery seemed as good a retirement plan as any.

By Jason Fagone

The Disaster Tourist

For just $2,500, you too could be responsible for a geopolitical calamity.

By Kent Russell

“I did flash a camera below her skirt as she stood next to me. It was intended for shock value only.”

Out Here, No One Can Hear You Scream

Why some women in national parks and forests have a tougher time than women in the military.

By Kathryn Joyce

Millennials Are Screwed

Why millennials are facing the scariest financial future of any generation since the Great Depression.

By Michael Hobbes

Four Quitters Walk Into a Bar...

To swap war stories from an administration they couldn’t serve for one more minute.

By Lydia Polgreen
Photographs by Stephen Voss

And So Jedidiah Brown Gave All of Himself to the City He Loved

A new generation of black leaders confronts the anguish of activism.

By Ben Austen

Reunited

For families divided by the border, there is one place where they are allowed to come together—almost.

Documentary By Laura Gabbert
Text By Daniel Hernandez

“Doctors would be offered paid speaking fees based on the number of Risperdal prescriptions they wrote.“

America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

Over the course of 20 years, Johnson & Johnson created a powerful drug, promoted it illegally to children and the elderly, covered up the side effects and made billions of dollars. This is the inside story.

By Steven Brill

Why America Needs Ebonics Now

When white people want to do something experimental in education, it’s called charter schools or experiential learning. When black people do it, it’s called identity politics.

By Michael Hobbes

The Super Predators

When the man who abuses you is also a cop.

By Melissa Jeltsen and Dana Liebelson

What Bullets Do to Bodies

The gun debate would change in an instant if Americans witnessed the horrors that trauma surgeons confront everyday.

By Jason Fagone

This is how the next World War starts

With one miscalculation, by one startled pilot, at 400 miles an hour. And now that Russia is determined to destabilize the West, this scenario is keeping the military establishment up at night.

By David Wood

The Blow-It-All-Up Billionaires

When politicians take money from megadonors, there are strings attached. But with the reclusive duo who propelled Trump into the White House, there’s a fuse.

By Vicky Ward

The Untold Pre-History of the Clarence Thomas Hearings

“Sexual harassment” wasn’t even a term until 1975.

By Michael Hobbes

Revenge of the Lunch Lady

How an unassuming bureaucrat outsmarted Jamie Oliver and pulled off an honest-to-god miracle in one of America’s unhealthiest cities.

By Jane Black

Hooked for Life

Inside the NFL's relentless, existential, Big Tobacco-style pursuit of your children.

By George Dohrmann

Is Ivanka For Real?

One of the greatest enigmas of 2016, explained.

By Hannah Seligson

Sandra Bland Died One Year Ago

And since then, at least 810 people have lost their lives in jail.

By Dana Liebelson & Ryan J. Reilly

Sad!

These three campaign gurus for Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have had some time to reflect on this nightmare of a campaign. And do they ever have stories to tell.

By Sam Stein

Meet the Ungers

Several decades ago, 229 men and one woman were convicted of terrible crimes. They thought they were going to die in prison. But then, many years later, in a nerve-wracking experiment, they received an unimagined second chance.

By Jason Fagone

Trump at War

How the military is preparing for the possibility of a wild card in the Situation Room.

By Andy Kroll

Drugs You Don’t Need for Disorders You Don’t Have

Inside the pharmaceutical industry’s campaign to put us all to sleep.

By Jonathan Cohn

The Myth of the Ethical Shopper

We’re still trying to eliminate sweatshops and child labor by buying right. But that’s not how the world works in 2015.

By Michael Hobbes

How Mark Zuckerberg Should Give Away $45 Billion

It’s complicated.

By Michael Hobbes

American Electoral

Seven crucial days on the campaign trail.

By Jack Hitt & Kevin Baker

‘I Woke Up In a Parallel Universe’

Six months ago, the worst thing that ever happened to me was the biggest news on the internet. Now…

By Jackie Fuchs

The Shooting Gallery

When correctional officers carry shotguns, the result is death and mayhem.

By Dana Liebelson

Love in the Age of Big Data

Scientists believe they’ve discovered a simple formula for happy relationships. Reader, I tried it.

By Eve Fairbanks

Cruel and All-Too-Usual

A terrifying glimpse into life in prison—as a kid.

By Dana Liebelson

They Burn Witches Here

And then they upload the photos to social media. A journey to an island caught between the ancient world and 2015.

By Kent Russell

Instruments of Oppression

Thousands of rape victims around the world undergo grisly and unsafe abortions because of U.S. policy. Obama could change this with a single executive action. Why hasn’t he?

By Laura Bassett

Scenes from a Marriage

The worst relationship between a U.S. President and an Israeli Prime Minister ever ... as autopsied by the people closest to them.

By Tal Shalev & Amir Tibon

Lagarde-ian of the Galaxy

The first female chief of the IMF on the Greek meltdown, a historic refugee crisis and one thing Hillary Clinton has in common with an “old crocodile.”

By Isaac Chotiner

His Town

Yousef Al-Otaiba is the most charming man in Washington: He’s slick, he’s savvy and he throws one hell of a party. And if he has his way, our Middle East policy is going to get a lot more aggressive.

By Ryan Grim and Akbar Shahid Ahmed

Mothers of Isis

Their children abandoned them to join the worst terror organization on earth. Now all they have is each other.

By Julia Ioffe

Stop the Madness

There’s a miraculous new treatment for schizophrenia that could transform the way we treat mental illness. And then there are the terrible reasons why most medical professionals have never heard of it.

By Jonathan Cohn

Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia

Home to one of the most brazen, deadly corporate gambits in U.S. history.

By Mariah Blake

The Lost Girls

One famous band. One huge secret. Many lives destroyed.

By Jason Cherkis

Let’s Go Full Crocodile, Ladies

A documentary that disappeared more than 40 years ago—available to everyone for the first time here—is a gift to modern-day feminists. It’s belligerent, it’s hilarious, and it reveals exactly what the Clinton campaign is missing.

By Rebecca Traister

The Life and Death of an Amazon Warehouse Temp

What the future of low-wage work really looks like.

By Dave Jamieson

What is Highline?

Let us explain.

By Greg Veis and Rachel Morris