In the early days of the era of Silicon Valley disruption, two Harvard University graduates dreamed up a bold experiment in education. Shannon May, who studied education development in rural China, and her husband, Jay Kimmelman, an education software developer,… Read More ›
Tag Archive for ‘Special Investigations’
The FBI Used an Undercover Cop With Pink Hair to Spy on Activists and Manufacture Crimes
The young woman with long pink hair claimed to be from Washington state. One day during the summer of 2020, she walked into the Chinook Center, a community space for left-wing activists in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and offered to volunteer…. Read More ›
The FBI Paid a Violent Felon to Infiltrate Denver's Racial Justice Movement
As racial justice protests broke out nationwide in the summer of 2020, a man driving a silver hearse became a regular at the demonstrations in Denver. He was a paunchy 5-foot-7 with a ruddy complexion and wore military fatigues with… Read More ›
A Biologist Fought to Remove Grizzlies From the Endangered Species List — Until Montana Republicans Changed His Mind
When Chris Servheen speaks to skeptical audiences across the Northern Rockies, he holds one goal above all others. The famed bear biologist aims to fix his lessons in the mind of the hunter. He wants his words to return in… Read More ›
Guccifer, the Hacker Who Launched Clinton Email Flap, Speaks Out After Nearly a Decade Behind Bars
Marcel Lehel Lazar walked out of Federal Correctional Institute Schuylkill, a Pennsylvania prison, in August 2021. The 51-year-old formerly known only as Guccifer had spent over four years incarcerated for an email hacking spree against America’s elite. Though these inbox… Read More ›
How Jan. 6 Brought Frontier Violence to the Heart of U.S. Power
“The battle between good and evil has come now.” — Senior staff member in the U.S. Senate In the Cormac McCarthy novel “Blood Meridian,” a man called Captain White leads a mounted company of American irregulars into northern Mexico on… Read More ›
A Competitor Put the FBI on Haoyang Yu's Trail. The Investigation Didn't Go as Planned.
Paul Blount started small. When he set up a semiconductor chip company in his basement in 2006, he was the only employee. He had spent a decade at the chip behemoth Hittite Microwave Corporation, and he saw room in the… Read More ›
Hacked Phones, Undercover Cops, and the Conspiracy Theory at the Center of Italy’s Crackdown on Humanitarian Rescue
The crisis started with an email: It was September 2016 and Pietro Gallo, a former police officer from Rome, was writing the Italian foreign intelligence service. He was in his cabin aboard the VOS Hestia, a 200-foot rescue ship, on… Read More ›
A Special Prosecutor Found Kevin Johnson’s Case Was Tainted by Racism. Missouri Is About to Kill Him Anyway.
Growing up, Khorry Ramey didn’t speak to her father about the day he would be put to death. “It was too uncomfortable for me,” she said. Her dad, Kevin Johnson, was sent to Missouri’s death row in 2007, when she… Read More ›
A Criminal Ratted Out His Friend to the FBI. Now He's Trying to Make Amends.
The FBI sting had elements of a B-movie production. Federal agents used a car chop shop in Seattle that was an FBI front, placed a prayer rug and a copy of the Quran inside the office, and designated it the… Read More ›