“Someone has sliced open soccer’s hourglass, and the sand has come pouring out on to the streets.”

The battle for Rio de Janeiro’s iconic Cristo Redentor statue.

A visit to Glenn Greenwald’s house in Rio.

Oil and iron-ore baron Eike Batista’s very bad year.

The impact of the oil and gas booms taking place all over the world, and our future on fossil fuels.

On the experimental favela police force UPP (aka “The Big Skull”) and their efforts to clean Rio’s largest slum in advance of the World Cup and Olympics.

“Calça de veludo ou bunda de fora.” Why Neymar, one of the world’s best talents hasn’t taken the money and run.

As the head of the CBF, Ricardo Teixera rules Brazilian futebol from the top down, controlling everything from the value of championships to broadcast rights. He needs the pull off a flawless 2014 World Cup in order to set the stage for being elected FIFA’s president, but there’s one hitch; the trail of bribes and scandals he has left in his wake.

Whenever you want him to go on the record, Teixeira shushes you and raises a finger to his lips.  He addresses men and women alike as “meu amor,” with an exaggerated Rio accent. “Meu amor, it’s all been said about me – that I smuggled goods in the Brazilian national team’s airplane, that there’s been dirty dealing in the World Cup, all those investigations into Nike and the CBF."

Translated from the original Portugese.

A young mother transplants her family to Bahia.

A 12,000-word profile of recently departed Brazilian President Luiz Inácio da Silva, the “most successful politician of his time.”

How the relationship between favela-based drug gangs and elite police units tasked with fighting them came to define Rio de Janeiro.