The Last Stand of Somalia’s Jihad
Foreign Policy December 17, 2012
Will Kenya’s invasion of Somalia put an end to al-Shabab?
The Tunnels of Gaza
National Geographic December 2012
The tunnels of Gaza are a lifeline of the underground economy but also a death trap. For many Palestinians, they have come to symbolize ingenuity and the dream of mobility.
In Rebel Country
Foreign Policy November 27, 2012
How did 1,000 militiamen in rubber boots conquer a city of 1 million people in a matter of hours?
The Cult of Massoud
Foreign Policy November 23, 2012
How Afghanistan’s Che Guevara still haunts the country.
Prisoners Rule
Foreign Policy November 2012
Welcome to the deadliest city in the deadliest country in the world.
Posthuman Pop
Wired November 2012
How virtual singer Hatsune Miku became a star.
Christopher Nolan’s Games
The New Yorker July 19, 2012
Nolan’s films are contests with rules and phases, gambits and defenses, many losers and the occasional victor, usually a Pyrrhus type.
The Fast and the Ridiculous
Foreign Policy July 27, 2012
In Mexico, it’s taken as fact that the United States is backing the drug cartels.
Obama’s Deportation Problem
Washington Monthly July 2012
By giving a reprieve to 800,000 undocumented immigrants, the president put out a fire of his own making. How Obama’s immigration enforcement policies got away from him.
This Must be the Song
The New Yorker June 14, 2012
In the late 1970s, in primordial downtown Manhattan, Talking Heads sonified longing and regret.
A Terrible Act of Reason
The New Yorker May 17, 2012
Suddenly, self-immolation is everywhere.
Bernard Hopkins and the Endless End of Boxing
Grantland January 25, 2012
A look at the always-changing prizefighter.
The Obama Effect
Slate October 5, 2011
A surprising new theory for the continuing crime decline among black Americans.
An UNconvenient Truth
Foreign Policy September 22, 2011
For years, even Israelis have known that Palestine is a state.
Mexican Roulette
Foreign Policy August 30, 2011
A deadly gun-running gamble just cost America’s ATF chief his job. But the gun lobby gave him little choice but to try.
The Unquiet Life of Franz Gayl
Washington Monthly July 2011
A Marine who made too much noise, helped save the lives of countless troops in Iraq, and paid with his career.
The Good Bad Son
New York Magazine May 22, 2011
Seemingly overnight, Saif Qaddafi became a new man: not the deliverer his supporters had hoped but someone indistinguishable from his father.
The Curious Case of Joseph and Nicholas Brooks
New York Magazine February 7, 2011
The father was an Oscar-winning songwriter. The son, a college dropout bon vivant. Their alleged crimes: serial sexual assault and a murder in a hotel bathtub.
The Great Cyberheist
New York Times Magazine November 14, 2010
According to the prosecutor in the case of hacker and government informant Albert Gonzales, “The sheer extent of the human victimization caused by Gonzalez and his organization is unparalleled.”
Obama=Bush?
Boston Globe Ideas November 14, 2010
Barack Obama isn’t the new Jimmy Carter, but he may be the new (first) Bush
Show Him the Money
Washington Monthly July 2010
Tom Donohue scares millions of dollars out of corporations. Is his U.S. Chamber of Commerce good for business?
The Real Deal
Slate June 15, 2010
The unjustly unheralded Michael Winterbottom blurs the line between fiction and documentary.
The Vatican Loves a Good Story
Slate June 3, 2010
It takes money, a medical miracle, and a compelling vita to make it as a saint.
Lost Exile
Vanity Fair February 2010
The unlikely life and sudden death of Russia’s angriest newspaper.
D’Escoto Inferno
The New Republic June, 2009
Meet the Sandinista who runs the U.N. General Assembly.
Meth Mouth
Fast Company May 2009
A tech tycoon believes keeping teens off crystal meth is a matter of scary advertising. Could he be right?
Arming the Drug Wars
Portfolio June 2008
American demand for drugs provoked the cartel wars in Mexico, and American guns smuggled over the border have made them staggeringly lethal.
Big Brother Inc.
Vanity Fair December 2007
Knowing your business is big business for Aristotle Inc., whose database of voter records has been an essential campaign tool for every president since Ronald Reagan.
Putin’s Power Grab
Portfolio November 2007
The Russian president’s real power comes not from the KGB, but from the oil and gas in his country’s far east.
The Devil’s Advocate
The New Republic September 2007
Is Environmental Defense Fund an ecological savior or a corporate stooge?
A Budding Invasion
Men’s Vogue March 2007
Mexican cartels have made marijuana a cash crop worth billions by infiltrating America’s national forests.
Will Success Spoil MySpace?
Vanity Fair March 2006
MySpace has become the most popular social-networking site on the Web, a virtual city of sex and youth culture, with its own celebrities, Casanovas, and con artists. Its most unlikely character is its conservative new owner, Rupert Murdoch.
Two if by Sea
The American Prospect March 2005
The Port of Los Angeles may be the country’s most attractive target for economic terrorism.