the big story

Early in the morning on October 21, 2016, Scott Shapiro got out of bed, opened his Dell laptop to read the day’s news, and found that the internet was broken. Not his internet, though at first it struck Shapiro that way as he checked and double-checked his computer’s Wi-Fi connection …

Cameron young slides a driver from his bag. He stares at a hole referred to as Texas Hill Country. It’s new to him—a par 4 with sand hazards and rough to avoid. The 26-year-old is in the top 20 in the Official World Golf Ranking, but he’s not sure how …

Just when the people of San Francisco thought they’d seen every video—the sidewalk drug runners, the Louis Vuitton mob heisters, the men selling stolen laptops, the smash-and-grabbers snatching a camera from a Prius in traffic, the porch pirates porch pirates porch pirates into infinity, all indexed in the “Lawless San …

When I meet Shawn Levy on an August day in Brooklyn, I expect him to be sweating. Why? For one reason, it’s sticky-humid outside, and I’m dripping like a swamp creature. The other is that the big blockbuster Levy has been filming these past few months, Deadpool 3, might not …

We were on the patio of a middling Los Angeles taqueria when Ursus Magana tried to talk me out of writing this story. A hirsute fireplug of a man with a slew of anime tattoos, Magana wasn’t worried that I’d spill any awful secrets. In the months since I’d first …

Two years ago, late on a February night in Vernon, British Columbia, Melissa Trixie Watt was struggling to sleep, so she reached for her phone. She saw that she had a Facebook message. “How are you? I hope you are well,” read the DM from an unknown man. According to …

In hindsight, zhenya Podtikov realized, he should have known that Ukraine’s first Vector drone was not long for this world. But when it arrived at an army base in Lviv, in April 2022, he couldn’t help admiring it. “I was just surprised that drone hardware could look so good,” he …

Let me just be honest: Patrick Stewart brings out my daddy issues. That keen gaze, alternately steely and compassionate. That warrior-monk profile, disciplined and ascetic. And, of course, the Shakespearean cadences that wash over your mind and soul like a lullaby. For more than three decades, as Star Trek’s Jean-Luc …

In the center of Siena, Italy, a cathedral has stood for nearly 800 years. A black-and-white layer cake of heavy stone, fine-cut statuary, and rich mosaics, the imposing structure—now visited by more than a million tourists each year—would seem to be a permanent fixture of the city’s past, present, and …

The Morrissey had the right melodrama in his limbs, and his voice was strong and pained. I was at Gramercy Theatre in Manhattan to see a Smiths tribute band. I tried to get Morrissey’s acid yodel in my throat, to sing along. I am human and I need to be …