The Great Land Swap
Three years after India and Bangladesh exchanged exclaves to simplify the world's most complex border, many who chose to move rather than to change their citizenship find that their prospects are not what they'd hoped.
Welcome to the Almost-Country of Abkhazia
A tiny territory on the Black Sea hopes to boost its bid for nationhood by welcoming Syrians fleeing civil war.
A Guide to the Almost-Countries of the World
From Liberland to Sealand, a partial tour of semi-autonomous, breakaway states.
How Redistricting in Michigan Has Disenfranchised Voters and Helped the Far Right Capture a Centrist State
Gerrymandering in the Great Lakes State has cost some communities their representation, their schools, and their access to clean drinking water.
Party Lines: Tracking Gerrymandering Cases State by State
Recent court challenges to politically motivated redistricting have yielded several decisions not to decide.
What Happens After the Violence
Twenty-five years following a survivor of childhood sexual trauma and abuse.
Death on the Dakota Access
An investigation into the deadly business of building oil and gas pipelines.
Trump and Friends Cash In
Members and backers of the Trump administration are profiting from DAPL while scheming to make even bigger bucks shipping oil and petrochemicals overseas.
Methodology for Calculating Fatality Rates
How we uncovered the numbers behind pipeline construction fatalities.
The Country's First Climate Change Casualties?
Scientists predict Tangier Island could be uninhabitable within 25 years. This is the story of the people willing to go down with it—and why they've risked it all on Donald Trump to keep them afloat.
A Journey Through Contested Lands
Introducing Pacific Standard's collaboration with Magnum Photos and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
A Brief History of Gene Editing
In just over 40 years, we've gone from simple modifications to the development of a gene drive that could eradicate an entire species.
Deleting a Species
We are on the brink of being able to genetically engineer an extinction. Should we?
Tracks in the Sand
Around the world, camels are disappearing, along with the cultures and traditions of the people who have kept them.
The Endling: Watching a Species Vanish in Real Time
On the frontlines of extinction in the Gulf of California, where the vaquita faces its final days.
How Canadian Cops Ended a Decade-Long Fight Over How to Manage the World's Polar Bears
Over the last 10 years, the poaching and trafficking of animal products has become the fourth-highest-grossing crime in the world. But because wildlife crime is not bound by national borders and each country has its own rules and ideas, its management and policing has become unwieldy at best.
The Great, Chaotic Biochar Experiment
Australian plant ecologist Brenton Ladd wants to reengineer the notoriously nutrient-poor soils in the Amazon, and, in the process, save the world's trees. But first, he has to convince Peruvian farmers and non-profits—and occasionally, his own research team—that he's not just another gringo with a strange idea.
Failure at the EPA
The agency has left immigrants and minorities to fend for themselves at toxic waste sites across the country.
Perdido en el Humo
La agencia ha dejado a los inmigrantes y las minorías a valerse por sí mismos en los sitios de desechos tóxicos en todo el país.
Surviving Racism
A Native writer struggling against the ignorance of white culture finds that her stories are her lifeline, her wounds are her power, and though the scales have been weighted against her in almost every way, there are many reasons to survive.
In Fairmont City, a Long History of Industry and Immigrants
"This is where we make our living. This is how we live."
Higher Risks, Fewer Protections for America's Immigrants
By virtue of both income and ethnicity, new Americans have the odds stacked against them when it comes to finding a healthy place to live.
The Death Penalty in America: A Lethal History
In colonial Virginia, authorities could hang settlers for a crime as small as stealing grapes or killing a neighbor's chicken. The penal code in America's first colony was, in fact, so harsh its governor eventually reduced the number of capital offenses out of fear that settlers would refuse to live there. Since then, the number and severity of crimes punishable by death in the United States have fluctuated; today, the death penalty is still legal in 31 states. Here are some of the critical turning points in the history of capital punishment in America.