A take down of the press corps and the modern presidential campaign, published on the eve of the ’88 election.

On the press buses, nicknamed Bullshit 1 and Bullshit 2, following John McCain.

Manny Pacquiao, still in his fighting prime, on the campaign trail for a congressional seat in the remote, untamed Southern province of the Philippines that spawned him.

A first-time candidate working out his public identity early in his campaign for the Illinois State Senate.

The nihilistic confessions of a presidential campaign reporter who covered Giuliani, Huckabee, and Clinton for Newsweek.

The strengths and limitations of the Republican frontrunner.

Newt Gingrich’s brief turn at the top in Iowa.

What happened when Toto Constant, Haiti’s most notorious warlord, resurfaced as a real estate agent in Queens.

Tracking down a Congolese warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court for conscripting child soldiers proves surprisingly easy; he’s a military official and owns a bar, dairy, and mansion.

In which three American journalists—the author plus Sebastian Junger and John Falk—almost accidentally capture the world’s most wanted war criminal. The basis for the 2007 film The Hunting Party.

After failing to capture Josef Mengele in Argentina when he was nearly in grasp, an international effort was mounted to determine whether a skull was indeed his, which would mean an end to the search for major Nazi war criminals.

An Ethiopian torture victim happens upon her torturer working as a bellhop in an Atlanta hotel.

Excerpts from Live From New York, an oral history of SNL.

SNL in its grim 20th season through the lens of first-year (and only-year) cast member Janeane Garofalo.

A pre-30 Rock profile of Tina Fey.

Eight years removed from the show, Murray was at the peak of his box office power and living in a secluded farmhouse in the Hudson River Valley.

How one of the most maligned cast members in SNL history ended up a talking head on Fox News.

A sweeping, honest interview published just before Murphy announced he wouldn’t host the Oscars included his first public comments on SNL in years.

A story in the student newspaper about a dropout and a few friends who were in California working on something called TheFacebook, which after a year had 1.5 million users.

One of the first major profiles of Zuckerberg, as Facebook was beginning the transition away from only serving college students and trying to figure out a way to compete with the then-king of social networks, MySpace.

And the Facebook origin story becomes a point of contention.

Two unusual themes: Zuckerberg sounding New Agey and Facebook seeming financially vulnerable.

A profile of COO Sheryl Sandberg.

Zuckerberg’s letter to new investors this week.

As the war begins to end, Iraqis confront a broken country.

As U.S. troops departed, Baghdad in ruins.

Inside the safe houses where Syrian youth protesters have retreated since the uprising.

An account of captivity.

An interview with Shadid.

Searching for Jimmy Robinson, a boxer who fought Muhammad Ali in 1961, then disappeared.

An investigation into the disappearance of 24-year-old Rebecca Coriam from aboard the Disney Wonder opens the strange and insular world of cruise employees, who vanish mysteriously at alarming rates.

In 1938, Gaines was the catalyst for a pivotal civil rights court case. One year later, he was gone.

The father of the first kid featured on a milk carton thinks he knows who kidnapped the him 30 years ago.

The search for Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, began in 1945. The unending quest tore his family apart.

In 1926, at the age of 12, Barbara Follett published a critically acclaimed novel. Fourteen years later, she disappeared.

Three Dallas prostitutes were found dead in as many months. Charles Albright might be the last person you’d suspect—unless you knew about his unique, lifelong obsession.

How two love-struck, type-A high-schoolers almost got away with murder.

A charming assistant funeral home director in a small Texas town murders a wealthy widow, keeps her in a freezer for months, finally gets caught, and still has the town’s sympathy as his case goes to trial.

Lance Butterfield was the captain of the football team, had a 4.0 GPA and a girl he loved. It wasn’t enough for his dad. And then his dad became too much for him.

Peggy Jo Tallas, a soft-spoken bachelorette, spent much of her adult life doing two things: taking care of her ailing mother and robbing bank after bank dressed as a pudgy, bearded cowboy.

The story of Dean Corll and his accomplices, who killed more than 20 teenage boys in the Heights neighborhood of Houston in the early 1970s, and the families searching for their missing sons.

A game called Spacewar is developed by early computer engineers in their spare time, improved in university comp-sci labs, and ultimately made available in coffeeshops for 10 cents per game.

Advice from 1982 on how and why one should buy a personal computer.

The Silcon Valley origin story.

A conversation with a 29-year-old Jobs.

Ted Nelson’s Xanadu project was supposed to be the universal, democratic hypertext library that would help human life evolve into an entirely new form. Didn’t turn out that way.

A 42,000-word, three-continent spanning “hacker tourist” account of the laying of the (then) longest wire on earth, FLAG, fiber-optic link around the world.

An early take on the dark side of cyberspace.

The definitive story of a ubiquitous software. PowerPoint’s origins, its evolution, and its mind-boggling impact on corporate culture.

An oral history of Motown Records, its founder Berry Gordy, and 1960s Detroit.

On wandering through the city’s “post-American” landscape.

A response to the national media’s mourning.

On Mayor Dave Bing’s plan to demolish 10,000 abandoned homes throughout the city.

Detailing the rise and fall of the most prolific star in the history of porn, Sager’s 12,500-worder helped inspire Boogie Nights.

A self-published snapshot of the industry following the Great Recession.

The former entertainment editor at Hustler describes the psychological impact of his half-decade as a porn reviewer.

The story of an appearance by porn star Sasha Grey—referred to here as “Tasha”—on The Tyra Banks Show.

An essay on what Internet porn has done to American sexuality.

Three years after skipping town, Bulger was frustrating investigators and endearing himself to neighbors all over the country. He made a particularly good impression with Gautreaux family in Grand Isle, Louisiana, where he spent the winter in 1995 and 1996 with the girlfriend who led to his eventual capture in 2011.

A view of the Barefoot Bandit from his hometown.

Can a writer disappear in America for a month with a $5,000 bounty on his head? Ratliff tried to find out, and found himself with an unnerving amount of free time.

The story of how Benjamin Holmes, wanted by the FBI for arson, spent two decades hiding in plain sight. (Also the story of how, when Holmes finally came back to see his wife, she shot him.)

On the run in Canada with Randy Quaid and his wife Evi as the try to evade “the Hollywood Star Whackers.”

A visit to the French hideaway of Ira Einhorn, co-founder of Earth Day, who had avoided arrest on murder charges for nearly 20 years. Einhorn was extradited to the United States in 2001 and is now serving a life sentence.

On the shared life of Tatiana and Krista Hogan, four years old and joined at the head.

A comprehensive history of the case against the Menendez brothers.

In the late 60s and early 70s, Austin Wiggins forced his three teenage daughters to play their strange music at New Hampshire ballrooms, firm in the belief that they would become stars. They did not.

On the perspective-bending art of identical twins Trevor and Ryan Oakes.

How three brothers from Chicago found tremendous success in their respective fields—Rahm in politics, Ari in Hollywood and Zeke in medicine—by their mid-30s.

As Texas governor and attorney general, respectively, George W. Bush and Alberto Gonzales should have given each capital case careful consideration. The evidence suggests they did not.

Cameron Todd Willingham was convicted and sentenced to die for killing his two children, a crime he almost certainly did not commit.

What it’s like to serve on a jury in a capital case.

On an convict too young to vote but old enough to be strapped to a chair.

John Paul Stevens, the former Supreme Court Justice, reviews David Garland’s Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition and explains why he did a 180 on the death penalty

On the hanging of James Murphy, murderer.

The first in-depth piece on Michele Bachmann.

A profile of Romney from his last presidential campaign, with a focus on how he evolved from professional consultant to professional candidate.

On the calculated political career of Rick Perry, and what it means for his presidential bid.

Notes from the Nevada stretch of the Ron Paul campaign trail last time around.

A look at Jon Hunstman, the former Utah governor and ambassador to China now running well behind in the polls, as he prepared to announce his candidacy.

An exhaustive profile of Gingrich, then a 41-year-old congressman balancing a new role on the national stage with the spotlight on his personal life that came with it.

A profile of Rick Santorum published as he began a reelection campaign for the U.S. Senate, a race widely considered a stepping stone to a run for the White House. Santorum went on to lose.

A primer on long-shot candidate Herman Cain, former pizza chain CEO and current Tea Party star.

On the rapid rise of the New Jersey governor, who doubles as pundits’ favorite noncandidate.

An obsessive marine biologist gambles his savings, family, and sanity on a quest to be the first to capture a live giant squid.

On the grief that comes with losing livestock.

A profile of a 25-year-old Spanish sensation.

The inevitably tragic story of Travis the chimp and the family of tow-truck operators who raised him like a human child.

A trip to a lobster festival in Maine leads to an examination of the culinary and ethical dimensions of cooking a live, possibly sentient, creature.

An account of the chaos published the following day.

The life story of Rick Rescorla: immigrant, war hero, husband, and head of security at Morgan Stanley/Dean Witter, which occupied 22 floors in the south tower.

The story of 16 people, 12 of whom were firefighters, who somehow made it out alive despite being inside the north tower when it collapsed.

In the days after 9/11, a photo of an unknown man falling from the South Tower appeared in publications across the globe. A search for the story of that photograph, and the man it captured.

An essay on the old and new in New York.

Using different email addresses and a lot of exclamation points, teenager Jonathan Lebed worked finance message boards in the morning before school and made nearly a million bucks. Then he made the head of the S.E.C. look like a fool.

Sitting alone in his San Jose office, Michael Burry saw the subprime bubble before anyone else. So he convinced Wall Street to let him bet on it, even though few were betting on him (a story excerpted from The Big Short).

On Jim Clark and the culture of Silicon Valley before the dot-com crash (the story that lead to The New New Thing).

Riots in Athens, the shadowy Vatopaidi monastery, and a quarter million dollars in debt for every citizen. Welcome to Greece.

The original article on Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s, published a month before the release of Moneyball.

The Servant Girl Murders were one America’s earliest serial killings, predating Jack the Ripper by three years.

In 1948, a corpse was found on a beach in Adelaide, Australia. His identity, and how he died, remains a mystery.

In 1964, a Ku Klux Klan “hit squad” rode into Ferriday, Louisiana and set Frank Morris on fire. Nearly a half-century later, one of the alleged participants is still a free man.

In 1982, seven people ingested Tylenol sprinkled with a fatal dose of cyanide. The case has never been solved.

A 29-year-old Jobs on the culture that gave birth to Apple.

Having departed Apple, a slightly disillusioned Jobs describes his new project, NeXT, and his views on the future of technology.

Jobs, having been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, addresses the graduating class of 2005.

The legendary rivals meet, in conversation.

A former Gizmodo editor at the center of the lost iPhone 4 scandal recalls his relationship with Jobs.

After being diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer at age 43, Williams resolves to make the most of her “bonus time” with her young children between visits to specialists.

The weeks following a near-death experience.

On terminal inmates and those trying to save them.

On identifying the man who encouraged strangers to kill themselves over the Internet.

A step-by-step account.

On a mother’s decision to donate her daughter’s organs.

David Letterman weathers a sex and extortion scandal.

Johnny Carson, profiled at the top of his game.

An out-of-character conversation.

A profile of Kimmel published just after he got the late-night job.

A writer for Conan O’Brien on how The Tonight Show really ended and on how his boss got screwed

Steve Allen, the original host of The Tonight Show, in his cranky, later years.

He was an 18 year old Marine bound for Iraq. She was a high school senior in West Virginia. They grew intimate over IM. His dad also started contacting her. No one was who they claimed to be and it led to a murder.

John Dirr’s son Eli didn’t really have cancer. In fact, neither Eli nor John Dirr ever existed. The story of a decade-long hoax.

On an affliction for the digital age, “Munchausen by internet.”

How a 19-year-old actress and a few struggling Web filmmakers created a star.

How a Massachusetts psychotherapist fell for a Nigerian e-mail scam.

The story was told by Sports Illustrated, CBS News, and countless others: linbeacker Manti Te’o, Heisman trophy candidate and the face of Notre Dame football, was playing brilliantly despite the tragic loss of his girfriend to leukemia early in the season. The reporters missed one key element of Te’o’s story, however: the girl hadn’t died. She couldn’t have. She didn’t exist.

In a Plano bowling alley one night, Bill Fong came so close to perfection that it nearly killed him.

The strange case of Kip Litton, road race fraud.

The story of a high school star who died minutes after hitting a game-winner to end an undefeated season, and the family and friends he left behind.

A youth wasted on pro-level Ultimate Frisbee.

In Argentina, where the fútbol underworld controls everything from t-shirt vending to murder, and “rowdy gangs” have turned the stadium into a battleground.

A gay freshman at Rutgers, a spying roommate, and the trial that followed.

The decades-long saga of Michael Morton, who was wrongfully convicted of killing his wife.

Part 1 • Part 2

How a Mexican drug cartel makes its billions.

The false promise and double standard of integration in the Obama era.

The rise and fall of the “most far-flung, most organized, and most brazen example of homosexual extortion in the nation’s history.”

“When I died, I died of many things: the failing systems; the weakening of age; the exhaustion of the long war against dying. Finally, I succumbed to the lack of ethics in a California hospital, killed by filth and neglect.”

The insanity of U.S. gun law.

“Reg Smythe was the greatest British newspaper strip cartoonist of the 20th Century—and second only to Peanuts’ Charles Schulz on a global scale. So why don’t we treat him that way?”

How the U.S. lost out on iPhone work.

As a 15-year runaway hitchhiker, the writer was nearly killed by a trucker. Twenty seven years later, she investigates whether her attacker was truck stop serial killer Robert Ben Rhoades.

A profile of Kermit Oliver, a reclusive, critically acclaimed artist who designs scarves for Hermès and works nights at the Waco post office.

A profile of the singer as he took to the stage for the first time in a dozen years.

A profile of Fiona Apple.

The Grateful Dead’s afterlife.

Blockbusters in the age of “corporate irony.”