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Editor's Picks

Defectors Say Church of Scientology Hides Abuse

Raised as Scientologists, Christie King Collbran and her husband, Chris, were recruited as teenagers to work for the elite corps of staff members who keep the Church of Scientology running, known as the Sea Organization, or Sea Org. But after 13 years and growing disillusionment, the Collbrans decided to leave the Sea Org, setting off on a Kafkaesque journey that they said required them to sign false confessions about their personal lives and their work, pay the church thousands of dollars it said they owed for courses and counseling, and accept the consequences as their parents, siblings and friends who are church members cut off all communication with them.

Our Man in Kabul?

The sadistic Afghan warlord who wants to be our friend.

The Wrong Kind of Green

While I witnessed these early stages of ecocide, I imagined that American green groups were on these people’s side in the corridors of Capitol Hill, trying to stop the Weather of Mass Destruction. But it is now clear that many were on a different path—one that began in the 1980s, with a financial donation.

No Credit

Timothy Geithner’s financial plan is working—and making him very unpopular.

How food and water are driving a 21st-century African land grab

An Observer investigation reveals how rich countries faced by a global food shortage now farm an area double the size of the UK to guarantee supplies for their citizens

How Tom Hanks Became America's Historian in Chief

Over the past two decades Hanks has become American history’s highest-profile professor, bringing a nuanced view of the past into the homes and lives of countless millions.

Street Fightin' Man

A Detroit neighborhood fights for its life, and an ex-cop leads the way

Gendercide

Killed, aborted or neglected, at least 100m girls have disappeared—and the number is rising

Algebra in Wonderland

Alice’s adventures with the Caterpillar, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and so on have often been assumed to be based purely on wild imagination. Just fantastical tales for children — and, as such, ideal material for the fanciful movie director Tim Burton, whose “Alice in Wonderland” opened on Friday. Yet Dodgson most likely had real models for the strange happenings in Wonderland, too.

The Buried Treasure in Your TV Dial

This proposal involves no magical thinking, just good common sense: By simply reallocating the way we use the radio spectrum now devoted to over-the-air television broadcasting, we can create a bonanza for the government, stimulate the economy and advance all of the other goals listed above. Really.

Building a Better Teacher

On a Winter day five years ago, Doug Lemov realized he had a problem. After a successful career as a teacher, a principal and a charter-school founder, he was working as a consultant, hired by troubled schools eager — desperate, in some cases — for Lemov to tell them what to do to get better.

Out of the West

Clint Eastwood’s shifting landscape.

Don't Tell the Kids

Rabbits are supposed to be easy to kill. The French dispatch them with a sharp knife to the throat. A farmer in upstate New York swears that a swift smack with the side of the hand works. Others prefer a quick twist of the neck. It didn’t seem so easy at the rabbit-killing seminar held in a parking lot behind Roberta’s restaurant in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn in November.

The Chief

You think it’s so great being Rahm Emanuel?

Human Culture Plays a Role in Natural Selection

As with any other species, human populations are shaped by the usual forces of natural selection, like famine, disease or climate. A new force is now coming into focus. It is one with a surprising implication — that for the last 20,000 years or so, people have inadvertently been shaping their own evolution.

Greatest Hits

Pie in the Sky

What happened when a billionaire pizza mogul tried to build an elite Catholic law school.

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The Interpreter

Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding of language?

Roger Federer as Religious Experience

Almost anyone who loves tennis and follows the men’s tour on television has, over the last few years, had what might be termed Federer Moments. These are times, as you watch the young Swiss play, when the jaw drops and eyes protrude and sounds are made that bring spouses in from other rooms to see if you’re O.K.

The Ballad of Big Mike

When Sean Tuohy first spotted Michael Oher sitting in the stands in the Briarcrest gym — watching the practice of a basketball team he wasn’t allowed to play on — he saw a boy with nowhere to go but up. The question was how to take him there.

When No News Is Bad News

A former managing editor of The Chicago Tribune probes the collapse of the newspaper industry and tries, mostly in vain, to find hope for the future of journalism.